The Connecticut labor news., 1923-01-26
LAST GREAT NAVAL OIL RESERVE GIVEN TO TRUST CONTROL UNDER FALL PROGRAM Bell Shows How Combine Reaps Enormous liar vest; Future Robbed Through Leasing
 of Teapot Dome.

EXCUSE PROVEN GROUNDLESS.
 (b) The only excuse, with sem
 blance of plausibility, that has been offered by the Secretary to justify the leasing of the Reserve is that the structure was being drained by outside
 wells, and thisa positively is not true.
 Some of the Best geologists in the country are authority for this assertion, and recent developments confirm it. In the last several weeks wells have been drilled that have tremendous gas pres sure and produce thousands of barrels of oil daily. One we'll is, producing thirty-two million cubic feet of gas daily.
 This is conclusive evidence that there
 has been no drainage. Moreover, ex- perts of the Interior Department admit
 that there could not be drainage to ex- ceed fifteen per cent. of the oil. If they are correct this Is per cent. would not have been drained in a thousand years and we would have profited by conserv-
 ing the other 85 per cent.
 COMPETITION-WHERE IS IT?
 Co As to creating competition what IS the situation now? We have seen how the Ohio Oil & Gas Company has Grass Creek, the Midwest Rein ing Co, has Salt Creek, the Mammoth 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 Sale Crek 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 ~4 l.o IL xl,.o 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 purely inde- pendent company a 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 rehneries, and then would have become a real competitor in the bidding for Sale Creek 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
 (d) The Navy should not now be using it's crude oil to purchase fuel. Comparatively the cost of the Navy's fuel at present is not matter of large expense as fuel oil is plentiful and cheap. It should be a purchaser and consumer of oil under present conditions, and not a producer and seller from it's 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 large quantity that IS owned in all the world and it should have been guarded with eternal vigilance almost sacredly. Truly number of greedy plutocrats, in collision with Government officials who are wholly unmindful of the public interests, have robbed us of 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 Creek royalties for five years, and our naval reserve worth several hundred mil l lion dollars for all time. Now he an- nounces, as the successful comp1e- tion of his program that the Gov ernment will receive Mid-Continent | prices for it's 5000 barrels of oil daily, or whatever is produced. Whatl a consideration? Two years ago the United States owned in Wyoming two of the greatest oil fields in the world, both a part of the public do- main, one dedicated to the American Navy. Today we receive Mid Conti- nent prices, the fair market value of oil of similar quality in the Mid Conti- nent fields, for o,ooo barrels daily from one of these fields, while from the other, we receive non-interest bearing certificates for a part of the oil, called a royalty, and these cer tihcates are to be exchanged at half what they should be worth, in our opinion, for storage tanks, etc. And yet, the secretary calls these tran sections successful Who did the sec retarU reDreSent9