The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-04-24
STANDARD OIL
STILL OCTOPUS
REPORT ASSERTS
Claims Control Maintains High
Price of Gasoline.
Federal Trade Committee
Makes Report to Govt.
FAIL TO FIND COLLISION
But Says No Competition Be-
tween Standard Companies.
President of Parent Company
Tells Why Report Is Wrong.

Washington, April DENOMINATION
of the gasoline industry by Standard
| Oil interests. the federal trade COM
mission reported to the senate today,
has been largely responsible for high
gasoline prices of the last two years
The report, written after an exhaus-
tive investigation into the entire pc
troleum industry, declares interlock-
ing stock ownership prevents any real
competition among the various Stand
ard Oil companies and the commission
! recoml- ends legislation to permit re-
I opening of the Oil Trust case to obtain
! notifications of the supreme courts
dissolution decree.
/ No conclusive evidence was found, it
is stated, that collision exists among
the Standard companies in violation of
! the decree, but the commissions find
1ngS have been transmitted to the at
| torney general. Prices are declared
to have been raised arbitrarily altho
| natural causes contributed. Pro-
nounced inequalities were found in
different parts of the country. The
principal finds of the commission are:
What the Commission Found.
That in most marketing territories
the Standard companies are domi-
nant.
That the Standard companies have
maintained distribution of territory
in marketing gasoline and that no sub
stantial competition in the chief pc
troleum products exists among the
| Standard companies.
That the absence of competition Is
due to a community stock ownership.
T That the facts disclose advances in
prices of gasoline and differences IN
price. corresponding to Standard mar
| keting territories which could not be
explained except under the conditions
charged.
with other branches of the industry
has tended to establis and perpetuate
monopoly
That there is no conclusive evidence
of collision among the Standard COM
panies in violation of the dissolution
.decree.
rs Controls . Out OF If Districts.
4 Conditions in the gasoline industry
as uncovered by the investigation are
declared to be:
Gasoline marketing is divided into
eleven territorial divisions al least nine
: of which are said to be under Standard
| Oil domination.
! Stockholders of the Standard COM
panies to a great degree are the sam
/ individuals or interests with more than
half of the stock of the various COM
| panies in their hands.
Leading officers of the Standard
companies hold considerab BILE in two or
more companies.
Standard Oil refineries produced
more than so per cent of the gasoline
output in 1915. sold about 65 per cent
of the total maj keted and held more
| than 20 per cent of gasoline stocks
Price Up rs Per Cent.
/ Wholesale gasoline price rose be-
| tween rs and IS per cent in 1915 saws
/ the report. Retail prices kept close
/ behind them. The part increased de-
mand and scarcity of the product
played in the increase is shown in fig
ures giving the increase in demand SO
/ per cent in 1915 and the production Z
per cent below the year before. The
| Standard books show large earnings,
says the report, also was evidenced
by the enhanced stock market value of
| Standard securities.