The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-02-16
Secretary of Interior Tells of
Need That Present Supplies
Be Fully Conserved
NAVY is DEPENDENT
Advent of Petroleum Has AL.
most Driven Coal Burning
Vessels From the Seas.
BY FRANKLIN x. LANE,
(Secretary of the Interior1

copyright by The Independent
washington, Feb. 15.-Seven wears
ago [ presented to congress a picture
OF the nations need for the further
discovery and production of petroleum
ana asked that relief be given by the
passage OF a leasing law which our
public lands could be opened to de-
veiopment. We then had several mill
hon acres of probable oil land under
withdrawal-tied up closed, sealed
useless That land is still closed, and
10 IL has been added until now we
nave over six million acres of such
Withdrawn oil lands But before these
!. INES are read it is probable that after
this seven-year campaign a leasing
Dill VIII have passed congress under
which these lands can be made avail
able to the oil developer the govern
ment receiving a royalty, in oil il ii
wishes it.
We have, however, no such suDplv OF
oil within the United States. so far
as we know, as will meet our national
needs Within few days Judge Payne
OF the United States shipping board
has called directly to the attention of
the president the dependence of the
American merchant marine upon an
oil supply which in sufficient quantity
this country cannot furnish We have
come into a petroleum age As a hub
rlcant, oil has become of such uni
Versal use that it has been called the
barometer of industry and no doubt
after 1t has ceased to be a popular IL
lumlnant or a source of power it will
stllt be valuable as the thing which
makes the wheels go round It's great
est popularity now arises out of its
use in the internal combustion engine,
and of the making of these there is no
end. 1t draws railroad trains and drives
street cars. 1t pumps water, lifts heavy
loads, has taken the place of millions
OF horses and in twenty years has be-
come a farming, Industrial, business
and social necessity; The naval and
the merchant ships of this country and
of England are fitted and being fitted
to use it either under steam boilers
as fuel or directly in the Diesel engine
The aeroplane has been made possible
by 1T. 1t propels that modern jugger-
naut, the tank. In the air it has no
rival, while on land and sea it threat
ems the supremacy of its rivals when
ever it appears. There has been no
such magician since the day of Alad-
din this drop of mineral oil. Medi-
cines and dyes and high explosives
are distilled from it. No one knows
whence it cometh or whittier it goeth.
Men search for it with the passion of
the early Argonauts and the promise
now is that nations will yet fight 10
gain the fitful bed in which it lies.
In Persia and in Palestine, in Java
and in China. in southern Russia ana
in Rumania we know that petroleum
is. for it has been found there. How
great these fields or others in Europe,
Asia or Africa may be no. one would
dare TO say. As yet however. the petro-
leum of the world has come from this
hemisphere.
The oil spring which George Wash
ington found in West Virginia and by
his last will called to the especial con-
sideration of his trustees. was the
promise of a continual well which last
year yielded 356,o0O,o00 barrels. Each
year has seen the prophecy unfulfilled
that the peak of the possible yield had
been reached.
From the mountains of western
Pennsylvania into the very ocean bed
of the Pacific and even beyond and
into the broken strata of upturned
Alaska, the oil prospector bored with
his sharp toothe of steel, and found
oil. Hardly has one field fallen into
a decline when another has come rush
ing into service. Only three years ago
and all hopes were centnrcd in Okla
homa and then came Kansas and then
the turn went south again to Texas,
and now it looks toward Louisiana.
Biologists have estimated and estt-
mated. and they do not differ widely,
for few give more than thirty years
of life to the petroleum sands of this
if the present yield is insisted
upon. And yet there is so much of
mystery in the hiding of this strange
liquid that honest men
will not say but that it Will become a
factor in the world of light,
heat and power. 1t this is not so
are a fatuous people. for with every
fifth man in the country the owner OF
an automobile and the expenditure of
hundreds of millions of dollars for
roads fit only for their use, and with
ships by the hundred specially con-
to burn oil. we have surely
given large fortune in pledge of our
faith that our pools of petroleum will
not soon be drained dry, or that others
elsewhere will come to our help.
In 1908 the country's production of
oil was 17S, S,500,000 barrels. and there
was a surplus above consumption OF
more than 20,000,000 barrels available
TO go into storage. In 1913, ten years
la ter. the oil wells of the United states
Welded 356 900, 900 barrels nearly
twice the yield in 1908-but 10 meet
the demands of the increased consump-
ton more than 24.000. 900 barrels had
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mo. f-Continued on Page Two.)