IT WAS safe to assume that when administration newspapers began to flash
the story, of the President's genuine interest in the oil scandals, the Presi-
dential campaign of 1924 had begun. It had been eight months forming,
but it was organized. After that the fight did not falter. Again we get a
glimpse of the President from his secretary about this "outstanding quality
of consistency." ¹

"He has never changed his mind on a fundamental public issue. This,"
quoth the nimble and happy Mr. Slemp, "is an extraordinary fact."

During the spring of 1924, President O'Neil, of the Prairie Oil and Gas
Company, arrived from Canada and returned to his Company $800,000
taken out of the country by him in the Continental Oil deal. Fall, Doheny
and Sinclair were re-indicted for conspiracy to defraud the government after
the first indictment had failed upon a technicality. The government finally
won its suits. All the oil leases were invalidated. But Doheny was acquitted.
Fall went to jail and Sinclair was imprisoned for tampering with a jury.
But the battle of the oil scandal left the White House early in 1924 and
was conducted in the courts.

However, the moving spotlight of public interest left the courts and
began playing upon the White House. The chief interest in the White
House was the President's spring campaign in the primaries for delegates
to nominate him at the Republican National Convention in June. Con-
gress was in session. Small grain was grinding through the mill. The John-
son restrictive immigration bill excluding Japanese had passed. The
soldiers' cash bonus bill was defeated in the Senate which then adopted the
Insurance Plan known as the soldiers' bonus bill which passed both

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