"Fraud?" "Yes"

Last week the U. S. Supreme Court unanimously answered a four-year-old question: Was there fraud in the leasing of the Elk Hills naval oil reserve to Edward L. Doheny? The answer was "Yes."

This answer ends the Government's civil action against Mr. Doheny. His leases are canceled; he will not be repaid the $12,000,000 which he spent in building a naval oil depot at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Supreme Court went further. It said flatly that the whole transaction between Mr. Doheny and onetime Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall was tainted with corruption. The jury, which found these two old men not guilty of criminal charges (TIME, Dec. 27), may well consider itself rebuked by the highest court in the land.

The present decision affects but one-half of the dual oil scandal. The other scandal was identical in most respects with the Doheny affair, except that in it the accused oil man is Harry F. Sinclair, and the leasehold in question is the Teapot Dome reserve. The exploiters have been restrained from further pumping until the civil case is decided by the Supreme Court in April. The criminal action against Messrs. Sinclair and Fall is still awaiting hearing in the lower courts.