Edward L. Doheny prices were high. The Mexican Petroleum Company was the largest in Mexico, and Mexico was the largest oil producer in the world. In 1922 Albert B. Fall, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, leased the oil field at Elk Hills, California, to the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company. Around the same time, the Teapot Dome Field in Wyoming was leased to Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation. Both oilfields were part of the US Navy's petroleum reserves. Neither lease was subject to competitive bidding. In 1924 rumors about corruption in the deals escalated into the Teapot Dome scandal. Doheny's reputation was somewhat
Barmat scandal Barmat scandal The Barmat Scandal in 1924 and 1925 in Weimar Republic implicated the Social Democratic Party of Germany in Germany in charges of corruption, war profiteering, fraud, bribery, and financial misdeeds. The scandal provided right-wing political forces within Germany (including the young Nazi Party) with a basis with which to attack the Social Democrats and the republic itself. Antisemitism in connection with the scandal also featured prominently in Nazi propaganda, since the Barmat brothers were Jewish. The scandal was used by the German right to foster the belief that wealthy Jewish families, in quasi-criminal operations found fertile ground in