Evening Star Newspaper, January 15, 1931, Page 40

THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 193L 0IL OIL OIL HERE WAS A TIME when this country could have furnished enough meat to have fed the whole World. > That was when we had plenty of buffalo and they were easy to find and easy to kill. Nobody can say that we were misers with buffaloes so long as we had them. We killed them even though we could only use the hide, and sometimes we had to ship the hide a thousand miles and sell it for a dollar. I don’t know how long we could have supplied the World with buffalo meat but we could have done it for a few weeks or a few months, or pos- sibly for a few years. OUR OIL MAY 60 LIKE OUR BUFFALOES The same thing is true of oil today. If we were to open up all of our wells, we could displace all of the other fuel of every kind used in the whole of the United States. If we could run all of our oil and get it to the markets, we would ruin the coal business. We would crucify the eredit of the coal carry- ing railroads and this, in turn, would seriously injure the credit of all the railroads. If we would drill up our proven oil lands as aggressively as we drilled up our oil lands in previous times, we could supply enough oil to displace all of the other fuel in the entire World. I don’t know how long we could supply the whole World with oil,—possibly only a few weeks, or a few months, or a few years, and then it would be a matter of past history like the buffalo. But nobody will ever be able to say we have been misers with our oil either. I have been trying for more than ten years to protect our oil against needless waste and reckless exhaustion. ANOTHER MEETING OF THE GOVERNORS OF THE OIL PRODUCING STATES IS TO BE HELD TODAY A meeting has been called for today in Wash- ington of the Governors of the oil producing States. The people responsiblc for the protection of our oil resources have been “passing the buck” for many yell;s and they probably intend to keep on doing it. I will again try to tell the truth about oil and* will again take the consequences for doing so. Early in 1924, after more than five years of hard, unsuccessful work with the men of the Qil Industry, I laid the facts before our Federal Government. - : After several months of quiet effort on the part of President Coolidge, he finally appointed the Federal Oil Conservation Board. The Oil Industry was controlled by a few giant companies and could find spokesmen who could say what they wanted said from intermediate companies. THE SPOKESMEN FOR THE OIL INDUSTRY HAVE SAID THERE IS NO WASTE OR OVER-PRODUCTION These men were flattered to appear to be the leaders of the Industry and they said there was no waste or no over-production, and that our methods were all right and could not be improved. They tried to prevent action on the part of the Government by saying that if our laws were changed so that our oil properties were handled as I recommended they should be, that gasoline could not be bought for fifty cents a gallon. In spite of pressure brought on President Coolidge to prevent him from doing anything, he had the courage to issue his letter and appoint his Board. 4 His Board, however, found that they were lined up against millionaires, multi-millionaires and billionaires, and they have been compelled to play the soft pedal ever since. ; THE WASTE OF OIL AND NATURAL GAS iS APPALLING Perhaps there is no waste in all of the other businesses combined that equals the waste of the Oil Business. . What is called competition in an oil field is no more competition than is a run on a bank. In fact a run on a bank is not as much “cut throat competition’ as in an oil field because all the depositors are trying to get is their own money, and in an oil field the operators are trying to get not only their own oil but everybody else’s oil. STABILIZATION WAS NOT WANTED BY THE STRONGER (7L COMPANIES : We could not ge: stabilization in the Oil Business because the bigger and stronger companies did not want stabilization. : They could count the profits they made from the constantly recurring periods of distress when - they could buy out first the little producer and then the little refiner at their own price. OIL IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT MEANS OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 0il is our most important munition of war. Its exhaustion not only invites other nations to make war upon us but handicaps us in the conduct of war. It would not require even the intellect of a child to know that the Federal Government posses- ses the necessary power to prevent the needless waste of oil, but the big oil companies had their lawyers say that the Federal Government had no such power, and when their own lawyers could not make a good enough ‘case, they went. out “and hired outside lawyers to tell ‘eve‘rybody the same story. : 3 This kind of talk can silence children but should not silence grown up people very long. WE ARE THE ONLY NATION THAT DOES NoOT MAEKE OIL A MATTER OF NATIONAL ACTIVITY The chief olfiect of the diplomacy of every other civilized Nation in.the World is Oil, but our Nation simply “passes the buck” and wastes our Fesources. . : I have talked on this subject for more than ten years and have said a great deal, and defy anyone to point to a single statement I have made that has not been true, and I defy anyone to point - to a single statement that has been made in contra- diction to what T have said, that has been true. I have no fight with our Federal officials who have been afraid to take a firm stand on this oil matter, for I doubt if they would have gotten any place in a fight with a great line of Oil Barons, but the situation has now gotten so bad that many of these Oil Barons are themselves frightened and, I believe, now is the time to strike. Henry L. Doherty, 60 Wall Street, New York, N.