The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1916-02-02
GASOLINE IN.NEW
YORK and IOWA
On January I, 1915, Prices Between
New York State and Iowa Var
ried Only one.fou.th Cent.
DECEMBER PRICE VARIED So cTs.

DECEMBER PRICE VARIED So CTS
How Can There Be Such Disparity in
the Course Of PRICED In Two Sec
tione Of the Country?
On Jan. 1, 1915, the wholesale price
of gasoline in New York city, the price
at which it was sold to the garages by
the tank wagons Of the Standard Oh
company of New York, was ~ cents
per gallon. On the same. date the
wholesale price Of gasoline in Iowa
the price fixed by the Standard Oil
comany of Indiana, was 100 cents pei
gallon. A differential between New
York and Iowa was Ia cents.
In the latter part of December
1915, the wholesale price Of gasoline
in New York city had been raised to
q cents per gallon. At the same time
the price of gasoline in Iowa had
been advanced only to 1876 cents q
gallon, making the differential be-
tween the two districts "a cents per
gallon.
If there was only Ia cents differ.
ence between the New York and Iowa
prices at the beginning of 1915, why
should there be q difference of Sd
cents at the close of the year? In
other words, why should the Standard
Oil company OF New York raise the
price to its trade 4 cents more than
the Standard Oil company of Indiana
was raising the price to its trade dur
ing the year?
Robert Welch, attorney for the in.
dependent oil interests Of Chicago,
offers an answer to this puzzling ques-
ton. He says that the eastern Stand
ard concern has been shooting up
prices of late because it has SO little
independent competition in its. terri.
tory that it is In virtually complete
control Of the market. He says that
tho western Standard concern has
been keeping prices down because in
its territory independent competition
remained to be dealt with. He pre-
diets that prices in the western terri
tory | will be kept down until the
independent oil jobbers have been
driven out of business, after which
western prices will shoot up to a fig-
ure approximating the eastern high
price. In general, his prediction is
that as soon as the Independents are
put out of the running the price of
gasoline in Iowa will ascend from 100
to $50 per cent higher than the low
quotations of last year. And this, it
is insisted, will happen without any
reduction in the production Of crude
Gil. .
How can there be such disparity
in the course of prices in two sections
of the country? Why cannot the new
federal trade commission interfere to
prevent such an apparently unwar-
ranted discrimination? Mr.. WEIGH has
answers to these questions. He offers
reminder that. while the old Standard
Oil company has been dissolved into
several self governing and ostensibly
independent companies, the stocks of
all the companies are held in common
ownership and the community of in
terest between all is complete. The
companies are, however. expressly for
hidden to make common prices or to
enter into trade agreements with one
another. Therefore, there appears to
be no way in which either the federal
courts or the trade commission can
call one Standard concern to account
for maintaining lower prices than ans
other. II they were to agree on q
common basis for prices. they would
be violating the injunction standing
against them. According to Mr..
Welch's figuring. the so called dissolu-
ton of the old trust and the. court or
der to prevent its units from cooper
ating furnish q convenient form of pro.
lection for practices which could not
now be carried on legally under Z cen.
tralized organisation.
Incidentally, Mr.. WEIGH admits that
if the Indiana concern should be
asked to explain why 1t Is making alb.
normally low prices in western terri
tory, prices which are below actual
cost at the present price of crude oil.
it could explain that it is making a
good profit on refined oil at present
prices because the crude oil from
which it was made was purchased at
less than half the prevailing price for
crude OIL Admitting that the crude
oil was purchased at bargain, price,
Mr.. WEIGH is strongly convinced that
consumers would not be getting the
benefit of the bargain, If the main
purpose of the big concern were not
to put the independents out of bust
ness by compelling them to sell at or
below cost oil refined from more ex-
pensive crude oil.
OF course. Mr.. WEIGH isn't telling
us all this without leading up to some.
thing in the interest of his independ-
ent clients. Admitting that neither
the courts nor the trade commission
can help, he suggests that congress
can. His idea is that congress should
either complete the dissolution OF the
Standard monopoly by breaking up the
common ownership in, stock In the var.
ious subsidiaries or by recentralizing
the monopoly and regulating 1t strict.
" under the Clayton act and by means
of the federal trade commission. pre-.
sulnably in the interest of the main.
tenance of uniform prices. That eth
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