Volume 2: The crown and the hat are all over the capital, and the spirit is full of energy and enter the foggy city Chapter 83: Mahjong House (Part 2)
Subtitle of this chapter: Both corruption and entertainment must be of good taste
The Teapot Dove Scandal involved a wide range of people and had a huge impact. Interior Secretary Mr. Fall and Mr. Sinclair were indeed important characters, and they were disgraced and imprisoned because of it.
But apart from these two, there are many other important people involved.
Edwin Dunby, then Secretary of the Navy in Harding's cabinet, resigned.
Theodore Roosevelt, the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt Sr. and Undersecretary of the Navy, was one of the whistleblowers of the scandal, and the key witness was his younger brother Archer Roosevelt, a senior employee of Sinclair Oil.
The elder brother asked his younger brother to expose his boss, so the younger brother actually took the initiative to expose the news to the press.
Treasury Secretary Mellon also accepted money from Mr. Sinclair, but he said nothing at several hearings, setting a model of silence.
There is more than one Sinclair Oil contractor involved in these three oil fields. Maxia Oilfield Company, Midwest Petroleum Company, Prairie Oil Company, and Indiana Standard Oil Company all have a hand in them.
This scandal seems to be nothing more than collusion between officials and businessmen to take kickbacks. It doesn't seem to be anything special or too exaggerated.
In fact, this matter is quite ironic. The US Navy owns these oil reservations to provide fuel for the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii...
But they didn't have the ability to develop it, so they had to transfer it to the Ministry of the Interior...
The collusion between these two departments benefited many oil businessmen, and of course the department heads also made a lot of extra money...
In the end, these oil merchants sold the oil that was originally provided to the Pacific Fleet to the Pacific Fleet’s primary imaginary enemy - the Japanese.
Well, compared to other scandals that broke out in the Harding administration, the Teapot Dove scandal was the most "stylish" one.
"Mr. Yuan, this is Mr. Charles R. Forbes."
Mr. Forbes was a former deserter who became the director of the Veterans Administration. He was actually a Navy deserter during the Spanish-American War . However, President Harding trusted him very much and put him in charge of taking care of the American heroes who were injured and disabled in World War I.
During the two years he took care of the American heroes, a full $200 million was spent.
Director Forbes spent money in a similar way to the Pentagon's $100-a-roll toilet paper. For example, during his tenure, he purchased a total of $70,000 worth of floor wax, which was said to be enough to last a hundred years.
He also sold the sheets in the warehouse that originally cost one dollar for 25 cents, and then bought them back for one dollar. Later, the warehouse operators found it troublesome and simply stopped transporting the sheets in and out, and just changed the labels.
What a generous American man.
"This is Gaston B. Means."
Oh, Mr. Means is even more generous. He is the head of the Aliens Administration. This department, which sounds simple, is currently managing a very complicated post-war affairs, that is, dealing with the "enemy property" during World War I.
During the war, the US government naturally confiscated the German "enemy property". However, if someone could provide "evidence" to prove that the "enemy property" was not German but Swiss, Dutch, Belgian or someone else's, then the reasonable US government would return the property to the "original owner".
Needless to say, there is a lot of money to be made here.
In fact, Mr. Means's hands extend even further. He is a member of the "Ohio Gang" who specializes in dealing with gangsters.
According to his own confession in 1930, he would rent two adjacent rooms in a New York hotel, one of which had a large fish tank. The leaders of the gangs that trafficked in bootleg liquor would enter the room at the appointed time and throw money into the fish tank. Of course, Means monitored the entire process in the room next door.
Using methods that would only happen in movies, he handled "insurance premiums" of up to $3.5 million a year.
President Harding then introduced several of his "buddies" in Marion, including his brother-in-law who was now the director of prisons in the United States, his personal physician who was now a senior coordinator of the Ministry of Health, and a lawyer friend of his who became the Comptroller of the Currency.
The Currency Comptroller is an important position in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the Treasury Department. Its main function is to supervise the national banks of the United States. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Securities and Exchange Commission are the four most important financial supervision agencies of the U.S. federal government.
However, such an important position fell into the hands of an unknown little lawyer.
"Mr. Yuan, this is Mr. Andrew Mellon. You've been to his house for a dance."
The only one worth looking at among this group of people is the Minister of Finance. He is not only clear about taking money but also about doing his job. After taking office, he drastically reduced taxes in accordance with the principles of the liberal market and relaxed various regulations on the financial market. While encouraging investment, he also increased tariffs, greatly enhancing the competitiveness of domestic industrial products, thus making the 1920s a golden age.
A hundred years later, the Treasury Secretary of our Majesty Trump, Steven Mnuchin, and Andrew Mellon are quite similar. Both are second-generation rich people, and even the policies they implement are similar.
In fact, the fact that Harding, a good-for-nothing president, established a bad cabinet did not affect the operation of the federal government. This is the benefit of liberals insisting on small government and big market.
Fortunately, several key positions in the cabinet, such as Vice President Coolidge, Secretary of State Hughes, and Secretary of Commerce Hoover, did not belong to this messy little group.
Therefore, it is harmless for the "Poker Cabinet" to play poker, and it would be even nicer if they switched to mahjong. If the President of the United States is a mahjong lover, it would be a great help for Yuan Yanshu and others to promote mahjong.
However, our Master Yuan will not spend too much energy on this group of people in the future. It will be enough for him to just get to know them.
Firstly, these people will not take a Chinese like me to get rich together, so it is good if they don’t discriminate against me openly.
Secondly, these people have a very bad reputation. We all want to be masters of neoclassical liberalism, so how can we get too close to these people who are tarnishing the name of liberalism?
Thirdly, this group of people were of no help to his "grand plan", and after the Great Depression, the Republican Party was of no use to him.
After President Harding personally introduced everyone in the room, he looked at Yuan Yan eagerly and asked directly, "Mr. Yuan, did you bring your things?"
