The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-02-20
FITZPATRICK DENIES IT.
Says That Mr.. o'Brien Is Careless of
the Truth.

Senator Fitzpatrick from Chautau-
| qua county, in the southern Kansas
4 oil belt, after reading the dispatch
from Kansas City, in Saturdays State
Journal, in which John O'Brien. west
ern manager of the Standard Oil COM
pany was quoted, gave out the follow
| ing interview:
'sI have read the dispatch contain
ing the statement of Mr.. O'Brien of
the Prairie Oil & Gas company, and
am sure that the Standard company
must pay Mr.. OBrien very literally
for his services, for certainly no man
could afford to originate as many un-
truths as Mr.. O'Brien has done In the
last thirty days on a small salary
In the statement referred to there is
not a single statement but that is
known by thousands of people IN the
oil district to be essentially untrue.
And so far as the stock boomers re-
ferred to by Mr.. O'Brien are concerned
he knows, as do the people of Kansas,
that the men who have FORMED [ne leg
islation adopted by the Kansas legtsla-
ture are none of them stock boomers
or stock jobbers' in any sense OF the
word. All of them who are engaged in
the oil business in any way are ac-
lively. engaged in the production of oil.
Il do not believe that "a is the COR
rect number of companies operating IN
the Kansas field. There are more than
1000 producing wells in the field, and
in the county of Chautauqua, in which
live, has already developed a daily
production of more than four times the
amount Mr.. O'Brien gives as the total
production of the Kansas field; and it
is no exaggeration to say that the pro-
pertieS already in operation could,
within a short time, increase their pres
ent production ten fold.
THE stimulus for the organization of
oil companies with a large capitalize
ton was the action of the Standard Oil
company in gradually advancing the
price of oil little over year ago from
94c to $1.3S per barrel. With rising
oil market people from all sections of
the country were induced to buy stock
in oil companies, and when the money
had been spent by these several COM
panies, now contemptuously referred to
by Mr. O'Brien as stock jobbers,' and
valuable oil properties developed in the
state the Standard Oil company started,
arbitrarily, from day to day, to reduce
the price of crude oil and followed it
down until the price reached So cents.
Then the producers held meeting at
Chanute. and showed some signs of ac-
tivity Very shortly following that
meeting the price was again temporar-
lily advanced two cents per barrel, until
the uneasiness of the producers was
alIayed, and their organization d1sband-
ed, when Mr.. sO'Brien's company again
resumed its policy of reduction, and by
frequent reductions of from two to five
cents per barrel they in time reduced
the price to its present low standard.
Prairie Oil & Gas company buys most
of the oil in the field, from which it
would seem that he would like for the
readers of the public press to understand
that there was some competition for oil
in the Kansas field, this is untrue, be-
cause the Prairie is the only purchaser
in the market today for Kansas oil.
And it is the only purchaser because as
soon as it's pipe line was completed
from the oil field to Kansas City. with
oil selling at $1.3S per barrel to the Stan
dard, the railroads of southern Kansas,
without cause or excuse, and supposed
ly at the dictation of the Standard Oil
company, Immediately raised the freight
schedule on oil to an amount that made
it impossible to ship oil out of the Kan
sas field, and left the Standard with its
pipe line the only market that we had |
The legisluation enacted by the KAN |
sas legislature is not expected to serve |
as an apology for the failure of any of |
the oil companies; but is intended and |
expected to prevent the Standard from |
forcing all of them to either fail or sell |
out to it, while the purchase price of /