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Show ACTION 01 OIL LEASETO START ACTION TO STOP DRAINAGE OF RESERVOIR WILL BE FIRST MOVE OF GOVERNMENT Philadelphia Man Will Have Chargt of Criminal Aspects of the Prosecution; Many Surprises Sur-prises Expected Washington. Court action in the oil lease cases will be initiated this week by special government counsel while the senate oil committee is following fol-lowing further the trail of the celebrated cele-brated McLean telegrams. The first step of counsel will be to bring civil action looking to the stoppage stop-page of the extraction of oil from the naval reserves in California and Wyoming and the annulment of the leases awarded by Albert B. Fall, as secretary of the interior, to the Doheny Do-heny and Sinclair interests. Any criminal action growing out of the oil scandal must await a more detailed study of the testimony adduced ad-duced before the senate committee 1 and an independent investigation to j fill in gaps in that testimony. j Atlee Pomcrene, former senator , from Ohio, will have more or less j general charge of the civil proceed- ings, while Owen J. Roberts of Phila- delphia will devote himself and his ; staff principally to the study of the j criminal phases of the case. ! President Coolidge Is expected to appoint this week additional special j counsel to pros-ecute actions looking j to the recovery to the federal govern- j ment nf sections 1G and 30 in the j Elk Hills reserve in California, now 1 operated by the Standard Oil com- j pany of California. I The executive will select counsel I especially learned in lar.d law to j prosecute this case, inasmuch as the chief point at issue is whi ther tties-e , sections were known to be mineral bearing at the time the state of Cali- j fornia obtained them ns school lands ' upon the grant of statehood. The committee will follow the trait of the inquiry into tho department of justice where it has been blazed by ! the cipher message signed "Mary," ; found in the McLean telegrams. ! This message was in code once used by the depar! incut's bureau of investigation, and through William J. Burns, chief of this bureau, the committee com-mittee come into possesion of Mclean's Mc-lean's employees. Burns also will be questioned ns to tho truth of the reports that the publisher pub-lisher is on the roll of the special j agents of the justice department at a salary of $1 a month and has in his possession a copy of the present code of the department. Additional telegrams exchanged between McLean and his employees, as well ns those sent from Wni.hini:-ton Wni.hini:-ton to Fall, Harry F. Sinclair, K. L. Doheny and .1. W. Zevely, personal counsel to Sinclair, are to be furnished furn-ished to the committee by the Washington Wash-ington offices of the Western Union and Postal Telegraph companies. |