The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1914-05-18

HSluttI or lne OhlduOIld corporation
commission, that the recent decision
of the supreme court in the Kansas
insurance case would be material aid
to the oil producer, if congress would
provide the machinery The courts
now have a right he said, to declare
when q contract is monopolistic That
being the rule, the individual oil pro-
ducer should be afforded opportunity
to enter court and show it if what he
termed the monopolistic expressions
of tn" pipe line companies continued
1t was explained by Mr.. Henshaw
and Attorney General West of Okla
homa that a provision of the Daven-
port lii calling upon pipe line com
panias to furnish statistical informa-
tion monthly concerning their opera
tions would show acquisitions of oil,
and afford an insight to the inner
workings of the large companies.
About Gas sportation.
Attorney General West was asked
by the committee why the same ener.
gies we're not directed against alleg-
ed infractions in the transportations
of natural gas. He replied that was
being attended to in other legislation
also that gas was not being transmit
ted such great distances, and in such
great quantities. He admitted that
gas in Oklahoma is monopolized save
as new fields are opened, and added
that the Oklahoma people would have
no objection to gas pipe lines being
mad common carriers. In oil, how
ever, he said Oklahoma produced 65
per Cenr of the refining grades in the
United States, and that congress
Attorney w, b. Johnson of Ard
more, Okla, testified before the COM
sucked" He said that when an in
dependent or small operator opens a
field the pipe line companies take
leases adjoining his land, and then,
refusing to take the independents
production, will sink wells near the
border of his lease. Once the COM
petitive wells are open, the pipe line
companies, operating through their
producing companies, would drain a
field &c such an extent that the inde-
pendent producers wells became of
small value, he said. There was no
way this could be prevented other
than d enforcement of the transporta-
tion business from the producing
business. All court decisions treat
oil the same as wild animals, he said,
so that it becomes property of the
one who first gets it.
Pipe line companies never wild
cat, said Mr. Johnson, employing a
term REGULAR to oil countries. They
always wait for the independents to
find field, then go in with their
wells and drain it."
Resume Hearings Tuesday.
The committee will resume hear
ings Tuesday morning. and at that
time will hear some of the gas eX-
perts touching the Reed bill from
the senate, making gas pipe lines
common carriers.
Terms of the Davenport bill pro
pose to make oil pipe lines common
carriers with the proviso that any
shall be exempted from operation of
the regulation when the nature and
extent of its business is such that
the public needs no use of the pipe
line, and the conduct thereof is not
a matter of public consequence. Com
plete divorce of the transporting
from the producing features of the
industry are provided for; rules for
SehSIdI IeSuldIloh vi ouSH Ih'o al Z
set cut and in support of all the re-
strictions is the requirement that sta
tistical information shall be given un-
der oath.
I'VE are expecting an onslaught
from the big pipe line companies" "
said Representative Davenport, 'and
will ask the committee to advise us
when their representatives appear