The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1923-01-26
LAST GREAT NAVAL OIL RE-
SERVE GIVEN TO TRUST CON-
troll UNDER FALL PROGRAM
Bell Shows How Combine Reaps Enormous Harvest Robbed
Through Leasing of Teapot Dome

thousands of barrels of oil daily. One
we'll is producing thirty-two million
cubic feet of gas daily. This is con
elusive evidence that there has been
no drainage. Moreover experts of
the interior department admit that
there could not be drainage to exceed
fifteen per cent of the oil. If they
are correct this Is per cent would
not have been drained in thousand
years; and we would have profted
by conserving the other 85 per cent.
Where is 1t?
(c) AS to creating competition
what is the situation now? We have
seen how the Ohio Oil and Gas Com
pany has Grass Greek, the Midwest
Refining Co. has Salt Creek, the Nam
moth Oil Co. has Teapot; these three
have all the other valuable leases and
acreage in Wyoming and the Sinclair
Crude Oil Purchasing Company now
has the governments royalties from
the Salt Greek field All four of these
companies are subsidiaries of the
Standard Oil Company of Indiana, so
one can readily imagine how "vio-
lent" will be the competition between
them. If the secretary has dreamed
Of competition he must awake to the
stern reality that all chance for COM
petition has been eliminated; and that
the very ends sought by the Stand
ard oil interests have been attained
Competition might have been estab-
lished by leasing to a purely indie
pendent company narrow strip of
the reserve to drill sufficient offset
wells to catch all drainage, if any;
and such an independent company
then could have afforded to build pipe
lines and refineries, and then would
have become real competitor in the
bidding for Salt Greek royalties Then
there would have been some actual
competition in Wyoming Further
more, the Teapot reserve would have
been saved and our navy would have
had millions of barrels of oil con-
served for future use.
Last Reserve Gone
Cd The navy should not now be
using its crude oil to purchase fuel
Comparatively the cost of the navy's
fuel at present is not a matter of
large expense as fuel oil is plentiful
and cheap. 1t should be purchaser
and consumer of oil under present
conditions, and not producer and
seller from its reserve stock. By the
present policy the navy may save a
penny today and be forced to lose it
many fold tomorrow. If the navy
had other fields, that it could con-
serve, the situation would not be so
bad, the action of the secretary would
not be so ill-advised; but the Teapot
reserve was the only safely secured
oil in a large quantity that is owned
in all the world and it should have
been guarded with eternal vigilance
almost sacredly. Truly a number of
greedy plutocrats, in collusion with
government officials who are wholly
unmindful of the public interests.
have robbed us of a possible means
of national defense.
Great Gift to S. o.
The secretary, in his two major
transactions involving public oil prop
critics in Wyoming, has handed to the
Standard oil interests the Salt Greek
royalties for five years, and our naval
reserve, worth several hundred mil
lion dollars, for all time. Now he an
nounces, as the successful compile