Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1916-02-16


this very day the tank market of the
Standard Of Indiana at Iowa points
is 1876 cents per gallon. In other
words. the Standard is selling to the
western consumer gasoline below it's
actual cost to independent western
jobbers whose jobbers are compelled
to buy gasoline on the open market
without any concessions on the part
of the refners who are able to ship
+ gasoline east, or for export owing to
the discriminatory prices existing on
this day
i Or. to bring the prices little closer
home, let US compare the prices made
! in Minneapolis, Mimi, by the Standard
! Oil company of Indiana with those
made at Dayton, Ohio, on this very day
! by the Standard Oil company of Ohio.
! The freight rate from the mid-cOntin-
ent field to Minnesota is 2.51 cents per
I gallon The freight rate from the
same field to Dayton, Ohio is 2.07
cents per gallon. That is to say, the
I freight to Dayton is "A cents less than
/ it is to Minneapolis. The price of gas
Oline to consumers in Minneapolis to-
day is IT'S cents. At Dayton, Ohio,
/ the price is 20 cents to consumers and
+ 19c to dealers and users Of CONNER
ciaI vehicles, or a difference Of from
! ~ to 219 cents, the freight rates to
\ Dayton being almost one-half a cent
+ lower than they are to Minneapolis,
making the actual discrimination to
8 cents.
! Comparing Chicago and Dayton, o.,
we find that there is a difference in
freight rates Of 90 cents in favor Of
Chicago. Yet prices here are 21a
i to 80 cents lower than they are at
/ Dayton. Again, there are jobbers who
are operating at Buffalo, n. Y, and al
so at Detroit, Mich. For months at
Buffalo the prices have been such as
to afford them living margin, while
the same jobbers doing business in
Detroit have not been afforded liv-
ing profit. These determinations mean
death to all jobbers in the middle
west if they are continued.
These figures represent the cold
mathematics of bloody battle waged
by the Standard Oil company against
the independent oil jobbers OF the mid
die west. Those jobbers are alive to-
day because many of the independent
refiners of the mid-continent field are
sufficiently broadminded to sell these
jobbers gasoline at figures lower than
can actually be obtained if the gaso-
line is permitted to flow to the east
where the prices are higher. Many
fjobbers however, are actually selling
at a loss, and thereby hangs another
tale. What is it? The dissolution de-
cree. This decree is the industrial and
legal joke and tragedy Of our age
Go back and look at the prices re
ferred to at the commencement of this
article Take into consideration the
fact that the Standard Oil company Of
New York made the prices in New
York City and that the Standard Oil
company Of Indiana made those in the
middle west Do not overlook the
fact that the strongest jObbing COM
petition of the Standard is in the Miss
/ issippi valley IF the government had
i let the Standard Oil company alone
and had not dissolved" it, if the gov
eminent had not put the subsidiary
corporations out on the sea of COM
merce as theoretically competing but
as a practical monopoly, does anyone
imagine that this price discrimination
would now be practiced for minute
by the subsidiary companies? If the
Standard Oil company were, legally
speaking, what it is in fact, national
institution, would it not be required
to indulge in nondiscriminatory prac-
tees?
See how it has been fortified in its
position. If the government had not
dissolved the trust it would have been
subject to regulation as one concern.
AS a consequence, if one of the subsi-
diary companies obtained a great mar
keting advantage by buying vast guam
titles of crude oil, the advantage would
accrue not merely to the consumer
in the territory Of that subsidiary, but
also to the whole people of the Unit
ed States; and that marketing advan-
\ tage could not be used merely to drive
out competition in one portion of the
country. To take a concrete instance:
4 It is commonly believed in oil circles
/ that the Standard Oil company of In
diana acquired vast quantities of
crude oil disproportionate to the hold
i ings Of the other Standard companies
and that it was through this farsight-
ed purchase that it has been able to
conduct the war on the independent
i jObbers of the middle west which has
made the year 1915 famous. That
crude oil was purchased probably at
about 40 cents per barrel. The mar
ket is now $1.20 per barrel and many
\ independent refners are paying prem
iums of from zoe to coo barrel for
their supplies. Thus by its vast pow
eT, the Standard is able to bear and
bull the market; to grab up the sup
plies of the producer when there is
an "overproduction"; to hold those
supplies and to shoot the market up
ward where there is an underproduc-
ton. In other words, it is in a posi-
ton to exaggerate all natural condi-