Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1895-07-03
A BIG HOLD-UP
STANDARD OIL SCOOPS IN
MILLIONS.
Trust Is Only Private Affair."" Yos
KnOw-HOw This Private Affair IN
Raising the Prico Of Its Oil Pro-
ducts

ducts.
CLARK Erwin in Chicago Sentinel.)
The people of this country are just
now regarding with smaz ement, and a
portion of them at 1e;,. t with indigna-
tion, the methods by which a private
corporation, whose stock is owned by
one individual, is levying tribute upon
the people and compelling payment to
the amount of fifty million dollars or
more.
That corporation is the Standard Oil
Company, and the individual owning
majority of the stock is the company's
president, John d. Rockefeller.
The associated press dispatches Of the
goth inst, give concise and extended
history of the transaction, from which
we give the following extracts:
THE oil territory of this country,
east of the Mississippi river, so far as
developed, underlies part of Pennsyl-
vania and West Virginia and sections
of Ohio and Indiana. The quality of
the oil in the first named fields is su-
perior to that of the Ohio and Indiana
district. The residuum in refining the
latter is capable of only limited uses,
while the bi-products of Pennsylvania
oil are valuable. Among them long
and costly experimentation has devel-
oped and perfected aniline dyes, para
fine for candles, and for insulating
telegraph wires, wax for gums, and
other commercial articles. Pennsyl-
vania oil always fetches higher prices
than Lima oil, as the Ohio product is
called. From its beginning the Stan
dard has operated most largely in the
Pennsylvania field, chiefly because of
the greater profits that were to be made
in handling that oil, the bi-products
of which are said to be as valuable as
the oil itself. The Standard has been
the buyer and refirer of the OIL Though
there are now and have been inde-
pendent refiners they are small ele-
ments, and the Standard is practically
the market to which producers go to
sell their oil.
I'm consideration of the many
chances against striking oil at the end
of an expenditure of perhaps thousands
of dollars in boring for it, and also be-
cause of its apparent disbelief in the
soundness of any searching system Of
searching for the fluid, and probably
| for other reasons, the Standard has left
to others the business of drawing oil
from the ground and devoted itself to
| controlling the subsequent sale of it. 1t
frequently has purchased wells and
leases in territory that was first devel-
oped but its main business has been
to refine crude petroleum purchases at
prices fixed by itself. For several years
past these have ruled on an average
too low to induce as much prospecting
as in former times. Excepting the Nc
Donald, Sisterville, and Warrington
fields, and perhaps a few others, new
territories have not been found for sew
eral years. The product of these has
been insufficient to keep pace with the
demand in the ratio the Standard de-
sires. The figures of the visible supply
for a number of years are instructive
in this particular. Feb. %, 1892, the
reserve of eastern oil was 16 900 600
barrels. A year later at the same date
it was 11,00O,0 900. In 1894 it had fallen
|
stock was down to 100000. The pro-
duction in the eastern district in 1898
was 30,936,0OO barrels. In 1894 ii
amounted to 30,1S3, 900. The shipments
in the same year were sc 900 900 bar
rels; that is, nearly 100000 in excess
of the output. The difference, as is
seen, was made up by drafts on the
reserve supply. At the close of 1894
estimating the Ohio reserve stock at
10000, 900 barrels and the Pennsylvania
reserve, as shown, at about 5000, ,00C
barrels, the visible supply in the coun-
try was down to approximately 25,000,-
900 barrels, four-fifths of it not adapted
to the most profitable purposes of the
Standard. Consumption had over
taken and passed production, in one
section at least.
Close observers of the company say
the course it marked out to fit the ex-
igeRcy is clear. The Standard, they
say, determined to stimulate produc-
ton. 1t set about first to secure all the
oil entering into the visible supply
which it did not own already. Prob
1 ably the total was not large. Jan. q
producers were surprised to read in
various publications a circular signed
by Joseph Seep. chief purchasing agent
of the Standard. that thereafter the
company would disregard the ruling
quotations of oil in the speculative
markets OF Pennsylvania and pay
whatever the markets of the world
justified. Some of the producers pre-
! ferred to store their oil ulon tha c,r
cular was issued. and 250.00O barrels
were actually stored and certificates
issued for them. The majority. how
ever. believing the Standards then
price would be lowered subsequently,
hurried their oil into its hands. The
cHect was what the Standard expecfed