Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1912-01-26
Discrimination CHARGED
PIPE LINE COMPANIES ASSERT
LINES CANNOT OPERATE AS
COMMON CARRIERS.
Price QUESTION IS RAISED
Standard Attorney says Competition
Is TOO Keen for IA Man 10 Sit In
New York and Fix Prices.

NEW YORK, Jan. 25.-C. w. Bur
dis, controller of the Tidewater Pipe
Company, Ltd, which is one of the
many respondents named in an in
quiry instituted by the interstate
commerce commission, was the first
witness today before Commissioner
Lane.
The Tidewater company is the only
pipe line competitor of the Standard
Oil company in New Jersey and op-
crates S31 miles of pipe line, extend
ing from Stoy, H., to Bayonne, n. j.
where it connects with the refinery
of the Tidewater Oil company.
1t is the contention of the govern
ment that this pipe line, in common
with many others, is chartered as II
common carrier and Is violating the
interstate commerce act of 1906 by
refusing to accept oil for transporta-
tion.
Theadore Westgate, secretary of
the Producers and Refiners Oil COM
pauy, which operates pipe
through the oil fields of West Vir-
ginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, testi-
fled that this line was not large
enough to supply the demands of the
original subscribers.
Counsel for the company said he
wished to submit affidayits to show
that the maintenance of pipe line as
a common carrier is almost an impos-
sibllity. The affidavits would show,
he said, that a pipe line is a most haz-
ardous business owing to the EXHAUST
ion of wells. As an instance of this
he cited Illinois wells whose average
output, he said, had decreased from
fifteen barrel to two barrels daily
in three years.
Standard on the Grill.
j. A. Moffett vice-president of the
Standard Oil company, of New jersey,
the next witness, was asked by Com
missioner Lane whether the standard
Oil pipe lines in New Jersey had been
placed under control of the New Jer-
sey corporation in 1905 because Of the
advance information that pipe lines
were to be chartered as common car
riers under the interstate commerce
commission. This Mofftt denied say
ing the action was merely in line with
a policy long under discussion to put
pipe lines in each state under control
of the Standard oil company of that
state. Mr. Moffett held pipe lines
could not be profitably operated as
common carrier because different
grades of oil had to be mixed in pipe
line, he said, and it was impossible to
deliver the different grades to con-
signees, 1t was suggested on the wit
ness stand, that according to testimony
in the Standard Oil dissolution suit
this problem had been solved in Texas
by running 800 barrels of water be-
tween the grades, but Mr.. Moffett
said experience had shown that oil and
water win mix under pressure.
Argue About Price Fixing.
Just before adjournment of the
hearing until tomorrow. Commissioner |
Lane and John G.. Milburn, attorney |
for the Standard Oil pipe lines got into |
an argumet over the question of the /
Standard Oll's ability to fix prices, the !
commissioner raising the point that a |
producer after using the common car
rier lines had no choice but to deliver
to the Standard oil refineries at the
Standard Oil's prices.
at is impossible said Mr.. Mlburn,
for a man to think that some one can
sit down here in New York and die
tate the price of oil. Competition Is
TO keen and the Independent reflners
are too anxious to get OIL