Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

A STANDARD OIL COMPANY TANK

A SELF-FLOWING WELL This well, from which the oil flows continuously without pumping, cost $2,500 to sink, and paid for itself in ten days

the shackles that railroads and the Standard Oil Company had fastened upon Kansas. Legislators who had been lukewarm or obstinate towards the plans of the producer changed front and stood up to be counted on the side of the people.

Fresh fuel was thrown on the fire behind the legislators when the committee inserted in its newspapers a paragraph headed: "Two Bags of Money by Express. What Will the Standard Do with It?" The effect was to create the impression that if the Legislature failed to do its duty, the Standard had opened its moneybags. A legislative inquiry was made to ascertain the truthfulness of the boodle story, and the report was that boodle could not be found. The producers' committee alleged that the Standard's lobby was responsible for both the inquiry and the report, to protect its friends, and the committee promptly cried "whitewash." The legitimate expenses of the producers' campaign were heavy, but contributions were generously given. Secretary Parker said that the committee's only "slush fund was $12 for cigars.

The native Kansan was now aroused and looking for trouble. The Standard's agents, sanguine of ultimate success, grew fearful, and tried persuasion, by cutting the retail price of kerosene four and one-half cents a gallon. The producers'committee declared that this was not only a bribe to the consumer, but evidence of the Standard's excessive profits. Then the Standard tried intimidation, which

[graphic]
[graphic]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed]
[graphic]

THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY'S MAIN TEN-INCH PIPE LINE

The pipes are laid with bends at regular intervals to allow for contraction and expansion caused by variation in temperature. Since all petroleum contains more or less paraffine or wax, much trouble is often experienced in the clogging of the pipes, especially in cold weather, and to clear them out an instrument known as the

[merged small][merged small][graphic]

A STANDARD OIL COMPANY PUMPING STATION
Stations with pumps and storage tanks are placed from 25 to 30 miles apart along the pipe line; the
oil flows into the tank at each pumping station, and is then forced through the pipe to the next one

finally in President Roosevelt's order to
the Department of Commerce and Labor
to learn whether or not the Standard Oil
Company was violating the anti-trust
laws in the conduct of its business in
Kansas. The Standard tried to shift its
position by revoking its order after it had
been in effect a week.

The iron was hot and the producers were pounding it with all their might. Towns sent delegations of citizens to

the lobbyists and the astonishment of persons who did not believe that the Standard Oil Company could fail in any of its undertakings.

Checkmated in its schemes to monopolize the oil resources of Kansas, the Standard, in retiring from the legislative contest, gave a parting blow to owners of oil lands and independent producers. The Prairie Oil and Gas Company announced that it would buy Kansas

petroleum having a specific gravity of less than thirty degrees, giving as a reason that its facilities for storage were inadequate to handle production. This order shut out seventy per cent. of the producing wells in Kansas, but did not affect the Indian Territory-Oklahoma field controlled by the Standard, which has only one well that tests below thirty degrees, the others ranging from thirty-four to thirty-six degrees. The specific gravity of Kansas oil is from twenty to thirty-four degrees, the average being less than twentyeight degrees. In refining it yields about forty per cent. illuminating oil, which producers offer as evidence to discredit the unfriendly statement that it is essentially a fuel oil. The Standard gave a further rebuke to Kansas producers by tearing out its tank-line connections with independent wells and announcing that its tank farms at Neodesha, where more than five million barrels of oil were stored, would be moved to Ramona, Indian Territory. There is substantial reason for the belief that the Standard will seek further reprisal by resisting any attempt to use its pipe lines as a common carrier.

Production in the Kansas field is now at a minimum, and there is no hope of improvement until the State refinery is in operation. In the interval the maximum freight law may enable producers adjacent to railroads to find a market in the State for fuel oil. The new maximum rate schedule on crude oil, while giving relief to producers, is an astounding indictment of what

law. Here is an example: For a haul of two hundred miles the old rate on crude oil was fifty-eight cents a hundred pounds; a barrel of crude oil was accepted at not less than four hundred pounds, which made the total freight charge $2.32 a barrel. A barrel of crude oil actually weighs 310.8 pounds. The new rate for a two-hundred-mile haul is nine cents a hundred, or 27.97 cents a barrel, a difference of more than $2 a barrel. Kansas has brought suit against both the Standard Oil Company and the Atchison, To

SHOOTING AN OIL WELL In many cases the oil does not flow when the oil-bearing rock is struck, and it is customary in such cases to explode a nitro-glycerine torpedo at the bottom of the drill hole, whereupon the oil

peka, and Santa Fé Railroad Company to learn if they are guilty of conspiracy or other offenses in violation of the anti-trust law.

The Kansas oil producer who looks ahead is not deluding himself with the idea that a State refinery will solve the oil problem for the independent operator. He knows that this refinery can supply only a small percentage of the refined oil consumed in the State, and that in a single-handed. fight with the Standard it might not give full protection to the people. "Practical and beneficial results will be obtained," said a representative producer, "when the refinery is set on a hill as a watchdog' to guard the independent refineries which we expect to see built by private capital. These independent refineries are the hope of the oil producers, and without them the future of the field would be discouraging."

There is little alarm in Kansas, however, over the possibility of the Standard's forcing down the retail price of refined oil to less than its cost of

[graphic]

railroads were doing prior almost immediately begins to pour out of production and maintain

to the enactment of the

the well, sometimes with tremendous force and velocity.

ing the schedule for an

« AnteriorContinuar »