According to a recently written history, the theft was no slight bit of corruption. In fact, the orchestrators of the theft secured the nomination for President Harding knowing he would give a free hand to his supporter, New Mexico senator Albert B. Fall, who worked diligently to sell as many natural resources as he could grab.

“It was this policy of conservation which Albert B. Fall undertook to overthrow, and he wasted no time about it. Fall took office as Secretary of the Interior in March, 1921. By April first he had already launched the idea of transferring to his department the forests of Alaska, then under the wise and efficient care of the forest service in the Department of Agriculture. Along with this came the rumor of a transfer of naval oil reserves from the Navy Department to the Department of the Interior. The next month—May, 1921—that transfer was actually made.

“Soon afterward, Fall extended his scheme of transferring the Alaskan forests to his department to take in all the national forests, and was evidently making ready to include in his attack every natural resources that was under the control of his department already, or that could be brought under it.

“Mr. Fall was confident and ambitious, but he made one mistake. He took in too much territory. Moreover, he imagined that as a public official he still could live on the Three Rivers plane, and that the methods of the old frontier would go in Washington. He was seriously mistaken.”

Fall made private deals with Harry Sinclair of Mammoth Oil Company and Edward Doheny of the Pan American Petroleum Company. In return for gifts of cash and no-interest, don’t-hurry-to-pay-it-back loans, Fall allowed Mammoth and Pan American to take the oil from the reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, which were intended to fuel the U.S. Navy in wartime.

President Warren G. Harding

The deal came to light. The public was outraged. Washington investigated. President Harding died before the inquiry reached him. No one was imprisoned for the crime except the fall guy; Albert B. Fall served one year in prison.

To the American public, the conclusion was as unsatisfying as that of the Enron scandal of 2001. Enron had grown from a pipeline company to a massive energy trader, but suddenly collapsed in a cloud of fraud, scandal, and suspicions of collusion with Washington insiders. Enron’s president, Ken Lay, died shortly before he was to be sentenced for his role in the collapse, which destroyed the jobs and pensions of 4000 workers.

Gifford Pinchot, in his 1924 Post article, was rightly scornful of corrupt business practices, but he unleashed his full wrath on Washington legislators who cooperated with such practices. His words, written 86 years ago, seem to capture a spirit very much alive today.

“Washington has been adrift. Some of the leaders of the people have gone astray. They thought the Ten Commandments had lost their force. It would be safe to wager that some of them think otherwise today, and safer still to believe that the American people see, as they seldom have seen before, the need for honesty in government; and are determined, as they seldom have been before, that honesty in government heneceforth shall prevail.

“It would be foolish to believe that the various investigating committees have found or will ever find all the dishonesty and betrayal that have been going on in Washington.

“What the country needs is a revival of faith in its Government. But there can be no such revival until the Government is worth believing in. There is no way the Government can be restored to public confidence unless the men who defiled it are thoroughly cleaned out.

“The breakdown of government machinery always stirs up the remedy brokers, whose confidence in any good-for-what-ails-you cure-all is the greater the less it has ever been tried. But the remedy does no lie in communism or Bolshevism or any other ism of the kind. It lies in a return to the simple, old-time, dependable virtues of personal and official honesty, fidelity and loyalty to the United States.

“Many years ago I was riding with a lumberman through the timbered mountains of Western North Caroline. He was no great talker, and neither of us had spoken for a long time, when suddenly he burst out: “Say, there’s a lot of good readin’ in the Bible, ain’t there?”

Yes; and a lot of it applies to the situation at Washington today. The trouble is perfectly diagnosed and the remedy accurately prescribed: “Thou shalt not steal.”

Scandal and Frustration: Teapot Dome and the Call to Reform The Saturday Evening Post

It’s only fitting, then, that when it comes to selecting art that both reflects our nation’s values and presidents’ personal tastes, the highly revered paintings from The Saturday Evening Post are an appropriate fit, with images that speak to the everyday American spirit.

From his governor’s office in Texas, former President George W. Bush brought to the Oval Office a favorite painting of his: a Western scene called A Charge to Keep by W.H.D Koerner. The illustration first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916 to depict a short story called “The Slipper Tongue.”

From his governor’s office in Texas, former President George W. Bush brought to the Oval Office a favorite painting of his: a Western scene called A Charge to Keep by W.H.D Koerner. The illustration first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916 to depict a short story called “The Slipper Tongue.”

With A Charge to Keep back home in Texas, the Obamas, along with their appointed interior designer Michael Smith, gave the Oval Office a subtle makeover, replacing the cowboyesque décor (with the exception of artist Frederic Remington’s sculpture The Bronco Buster) with a more traditional touch, while embracing such classics as the Norman Rockwell painting, the iconic Working on the Statue of Liberty, which appeared on the cover of the Post in July 1946.

Seen here as a Post cover, Working on the Statue of Liberty, Norman Rockwell, July 6, 1946, now hangs only feet away from President Obama's desk in the Oval Office.

The original work of art was previously owned by famed film director Steven Spielberg—an avid Rockwell collector. In 1994 Spielberg donated the painting to the White House where it has proudly hung for Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, according to Jeremy Clowe, manager of media services for the Norman Rockwell Museum. “An additional series of Rockwell works—appropriately titled So You Want to See The President (The Saturday Evening Post story illustration, November 13, 1943)—are also on loan to the White House, and on view in the building’s West Wing,” says Clowe.

The history of the Post is deeply rooted in American culture and will not only continue to find a home in the heart of America, but in the hearts of Americans. Today’s Post readers turn to the magazine for a dose of artistic nostalgia, an update on current cultural trends, and a forecast for medical breakthroughs and emerging technology of days to come, as the Post continues to “Celebrate America—Past, Present, and Future.”

View Gallery.

Obama’s Rockwell The Saturday Evening Post

The committee chose President Obama from 205 candidates (172 individuals, 33 organizations) whose names had been submitted as part of the committee’s annual process.

The choice of Obama surprised most Americans, as well as the international reporters in Oslo, Norway, where the announcement was made.

Obama took office in January, only two weeks before the deadline for submitting nominees. In the short time that followed, it appears, the Nobel committee was impressed with his efforts to improve diplomacy and eliminate nuclear arsenals. They must have considered his efforts to build understanding between America and the Muslim world in a Cairo speech, and his United Nations speech urging greater global unity. They also would have known that this peace candidate was waging war in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The committee did not have to name a winner. Between 1901 and the present, the committee has refused the prize in 19 years.

President Theodore Roosevelt won the Peace Prize in 1906 for brokering a peace between Russia and Japan, which was threatening to destabilize Asia and possibly the Russian government.

Woodrow Wilson won the prize in 1919 for his efforts to end World War I and build a global League of Nations, which he believed would prohibit future wars.

In 2002 the committee gave its award to ex-president Jimmy Carter for his efforts, both in and out of office, to support peace and help struggling nations. And in 2007, former vice president Al Gore was the recipient for his international efforts on behalf of the environment.

The list of past winners is long and includes many now-obscure names. Many, though, should be familiar to us: Albert Schweitzer, George C. Marshall, Dag Hammarskjöld, Linus Pauling, Martin Luther King Jr., the International Red Cross, Anwar Al-Sadat, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Nelson Mandela.

But the Peace Prize doesn’t always come with a supply of peace. The choices in the past have been controversial. Many were angered when the committee gave the award to Henry Kissinger in 1973, and even more were disappointed that it was never given to Mahatma Ghandi.

What are your thoughts on the Peace Prize?

Who would you have nominated for the award this year?

Obama Wins Nobel for Peace The Saturday Evening Post