The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1905-02-28
TRUST TAKES
ITS REVENGE
KANSAS OIL PRODUCERS ARE
WITHOUT A MARKET.
HARD BLOW FOR OIL TOWNS
Twenty Thousand Men Idle in District
and Very Little Money in Cir
culation.

Chanute, Kan, Feb. ga condition
of paralysis exists in the Kansas oil
fields as a result of the Standard Oil
company's refusal to buy oil from pro-
ducers even at the present low price OF
6S cents barrel. With capacity for
10000 barrels a day, the producers
have no market and ruin is confront
ing them
"Over-production" is the cry of the
trust TOO many spectators, too
many wells, too rapid development tor
the market to take the output is the
way John O'Brien, manager OF the
Prairie Oil and Gas company, one CT
the tentacles of the trust, puts it. He
points to the trust storage tanks hold
ing almost 100000 barrels of crude
oil, and to independent tanks holding
almost million more.
The refinery capacity of the trust IN
the two refineries in the district, one
in NeodCsha and the other in Kansas
City, is only $4,000 barrels a day. But
at Whiting, Ind, to which the pipe is
Utmost completed, there is refining
capacity big enough to take care or
thn rhn1o fold bn -t1t reTi
bill is endorsed by the supreme court,
an Independent refinery with capital
of 100000 will be put in operation
here.
Twenty Thousand. Idle.
In the meantime 10000 men are idle.
u will be six months before the state
refinery can be built, not to speak OF
delays in the friendly litigation to
test the constitutionality of the mea-
sure. During this period of inactivity
interest and expenses will crush many
oil companies.
The brilliantly Illuminated mush-
room cities which have sprung UP are
beginning to feel the effect of the
Standards blow The halt in labor ac-
tivity has brought a halt in the cir
culation of money. Before the states
plans for rescue are perfected the peo-
Pile fear the oil business will be in a
condition of collapse.
Standard Oil Methods.
H. E. West and J. H. Crawford OF
this outline of the Standards meth.
odh:
when the development of the Kan
sas field was first attempted two years
ago, the original developers wrote to
the Standard Oil company and asked
them what they would do. They were
informed by the Prairie Oil and Gas
company, which is the Kansas name
for the Standard, that the STANDARD
would take care of them, and if they
drilled in the field that the Standard
would provide the facilities for hand,
ling the oil. AT that time the Standard
encouraged the production.
THE whole record Oh the Standard
Oil company in Kansas has been a
record of broken promises, of treach
cry to every interest which is making
for the material prosperity of the
state, of duplicity, deception and
! wrong. There is not single instance
where they have kept faith with any
body.
Record of Oppression.
''It is a record from start to finish oi
oppression, of favoriteism, of discrim
| ination and of lawbreaking.
SIN this fight against the Standard
| Oil company we appeal to that record
to show that they have done nothing
in this state that they have not made
a profit out of. that they have done
nothing in this state that the produc
ers did not pay for, that they have
done nothing in this state which did
not yield them tenfold the amount OF
their investment"