Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-12-15
STANDARD Dill CONCERNS
COMPETE AGAINST EACH
OTHER, SENATE IS TOLD
w. c. Teagle, President of New Jersey Organi-
~zation, Says His Company Operates in Free
and Active Competition With All Others;
Profits Less Than Cent a Gallon, He Ayers.

, cheapest sources. the Gulf, Texas and
other large companies maintain and
operate extensive marketing and dis
tributing facilities in the states IN
which we are marketing"
Mr.. Teagle stated that in these
states, of q total of 4,S10 marketing
and distributing stations, his company
maintained only 776, or 16.1 per cent.
which supplied, however, he said, a
little more than a third of the total
consumption in the area.
Turning to profits of the New Jer-
sey company, Mr.. Teagle testified that
its earnings. included those of subsidi-
airy companies, during the years 1870
and 1921 and the first six months of
the present year were at the rate OF
90 per cent per annum on net assets
and aggregated 1913, 720,213.
The dividend return to stockholders,
the committee was told, has not
changed since the dissolution and the
business since then has paid them an
average of "A per cent per annum on
the net assets. In the two and one
half years ended last June 30, Mr..
ITeagle said. common dividends aggre-
eating S49,274,S12.5O. or an average of
2.S3 per cent per annum on net assets
over this period were paid.
Net earnings of the company and at
filiated organizations for 1920 and l92l
and the estimated earnings for the first
six months Of 1922 were grouped by
Mr.. Teagle as follows:
From foreign business, SS7,319,5S5;
from collateral business. S72,47O. 149,
and from domestic oil, $53,930,419.
THE Standard Oil company of New
jersey Mr.. Teagle continued, has
earned during the two and one-half
years ended June 80. 1922. a total of
s. ,930.479 from its domestic oil bust
ness. During the same period we have
run through our domestic refineries n
total of III, 467,211 barrels of crude
oil. On these figures the earnings
were equivalent to 81 cents per bar
rel"
what do the earnings shown mean
TO the eventual purchaser of a gallon
of our products and what part of each
dollar paid to the Standard Oil com
pany New Jersey represent profits
to this company? This is a phase of
the matter about which there is gener-
ally a very impression, j. e.,
unc~onscionable profits are being made
out of the oil business.
1.-THE gross sales of the Standard Oil
company of New Jersey and its domes-
tic subsidiaries in their domestic oil
business during the two and one-half
years, according to reports, were ST.
516,392.315 and the profits from that
business were $50 ,930.419, or $50 per
cent.
Out of every dollar paid by the con-
sumner for out petroleum products in
that period we retained 3.56 cents.
Applying that basis of figuration and
assuming that consumers of our gaso~
line paid an average retail price Of y
cents per gallon. the profit of the com
pany was less than one cent per gal
lon"
Mr.. Teagle also went into the stock
dividend recently paid by his company,
declaring it has aroused much public
interest and discussion" Practically
from its inception. the committee was
told. the Standard Oil company of New
Jersey had been under-capitalized and
the disparity between capital stock and
new assets has steadily increased.
This fact has made possible the asser-
ton wholly without real foundation of
abnormal rates, he asserted.
Concluding his statement, Mr.. Teagle
said he thought he properly could claim
for the petroleum industry that it had
been "thc greatest single force in the
extension Of the foreign trade of the
United States and that it has made a
notable contribution to the prosperity,
the welfare and the progress not only
of the American people but of the peo-
pie of many lands"
"In no cases" he declared. "have so
many self-controlled and independent
units flourished and multiplied during
the past decade as in the petroleum in
dustry," in which the process of de-
centration of power has passed so rap
idly from the hands Of the few to the
hands of the many