The Guthrie daily leader. [volume] (Guthrie, Okla.) 1893-1996, 1908-06-04
REMARKS or SPEAKER MURRAY ON
HOUSE BILL 1858 BY ANTHONY, MAY s


we'll One Of them drilled upon hill.
the other In the valley. The man on
tho hill struck nothing but water,
dirt and rock This bill would not
tax him upon the cost Of that empty
well-the hole Is valuless not even
worth post hole; you corldn't even
convert It into a post hole The man
who digs In the valley strikos cii--if
he strikes well that produces ten
barrels Of oil y day, he pays on that
ten barrels a day-if he strikes a we'll
that produces a thousand barrels a
day. he pays on that thousand bar
rels a day. II the value Of that oil Is
dollar a barrel, he will pay cne half
OF one per cent upon the barrel II
Il is worth forty cents a barrel, then
he viii pay only one half Of one per
cent on two and one half barrels. This
bill bases the proposition upon the
production based upon the valuation
of that production. Now is it fair TO
put a man who has put his money in a
hazardous risk by putting It into a
well and then come out without oil,
on the same basis as the man who
strikes that oil, the public property
OF the ntate2
Again, ! want TO reply to a remark
made by Mr.. Tillotson when he said
he could buy land at one hundred dol
lars an acre that had oil under it,
he can II he will sell the right to the
oil--and Il looks TO the surface only
that the ad valorem tax can go; only
to the value Of the land and not the
minetal. We must remember in that
particular, too, that the most Of these
lands belong to the Indian. that the
lands that belong to the Indian are
nOs taxed; that property Is public
property. Under these lands Is oil.
and oil, as every cne knows ls found
In pockets and they run from five to
fifteen years, then II is gone If you
are NOT going to tax that public
property now, when are you going to-?
After it Is gone? Is it not better to
tax 1t one half Of cne per cent as II
comes from the earth7
once lived in an oil district 1t
+ was part of my business at the in
stance Of the oil men running col
umn In the newspaper for them, that
gave the oil news. / remember very
well In the Corsicana oil fields. /
lived there when they first struck oil
4 AAtNAG a nuAAlDCi VI NEuIos
and went through that period Some
of those wells turned out five barrels
a day and some one hundred and
fifty scarcely any of them more than
a hundred and fifty To-day the oil
fields are practically exhausted and
gone in Corsicana. During that time
the oil was struck in the poorer dis
tricts where the negroes and poor peo-
pie lived. remember a Dutehman
by the name of Barth that leased his
lots and had an oil we'll put on It. His
wells were hundred barrel-a-aday
wells; that fellow drew in royalties
at ten per cent--he drew twenty-four
hundred dollars a month as long as
they lasted, and then you would hear
him talk about what a fool ! was for
not digging them myself" when he
couldn't dig a post hole. / say to you
Il Is far better to tax that property
es It comes from the well Tor the rea.
son that If the man doesn't make It.
he isn't taxed at all, and in this con-
nection. ....
YANDEVBNTER: Mr.. Speaker, will
the gentleman yield to question:
mo, / will net yield) Point OF order.
Mr. Speaker: Estate your point Of or
der Mr.. Vandeventer:) the point is
this: you say 1t u best to tax the
production as 1t comes from the we'll
in order that it would fall equally?
II you would stop there | would agree
with you; now you purpose in addi.
ton to that To levy an ad valorem tax
On the derrifks, the piping, the outfits
MURRAY'i Certainly ! would tax
that derrick. That rs about all he has
ad valorem. No, I don't yield any
more. ! have seen run oil wells, and
want to say in this connection that
II your oil well don't produce, you
don't pay anything. II it does pro-
duce, you pay in proportion, to the
output and for all the output. and
with reference to no other state
ever having thl8, why the state Of Tex
as levied one cent on the output Of
OIL when II was only worth eighteen
cents a barrel and every speaker
states that Texas oil is worth more
than q dollar a barrel today, and to
day there IS only half the production
81 oil In Texas.
II they pus that tax on oil and Il
caused It TO rise, would II not be well
10 place II in Oklahoma? Il might
have the same effect here One half
a cent on two and a half barrels Of
oil, I repeats that a burden? God
knows that's a burdenl leone half a
cent on two and a half barrels One
OF the gentlemen talking on this pro
position came here and said why
sir, a short while ago mortgagad my
home TO go into the oil business, what
do YOU think Of that2" I said-1
think il is a bad business proposition
and has nothing 70 do with the doc.
trine of taxation"
have In my library book got at
the instance OF Jno. H. Reagan that
he got from the P7ussian goverrR
ment said to be the best document on
the production OF minerals ever pro.
duced IN the world. That book saws
that for every dollars worth OF gold
and silver that Games out OF the earth
it costs Us more than fye dollars ex
pended in tho search OF every dollar
gotten out-and SO there Is your haz.
ardols proposition The gentleman
over there quotes on oil that Il cost
two 10 one-the facts are. a man who
strikes an oil we'll Is rich indaaa Ia