The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-03-06
Chairman of Standard Oil Go. Directors Declares Report of Senate Subcommittee Is Discrediting to His Concern
 Grossly Unjust, Misleading
SUPPLY AND DEMAND LAW FIX PRICES, HE ASSERTS
Aroused at Charges of Gov
 ernmentaI Investigators He Promises No Considerable"
 Advance in Gasoline or Pe- troIeum Products "in Sight"

NEW YORK, March 5.-(By Asso- ciated Press.)-A. c. Bedford, chair man of the board of directors of tte Standard Oil company of New Jersey, issued a statement tonight charging that the Senate sub-com mittees report on the American oil industry made public yesterday. was intended to discredit his company He characterized the investigation as unfair to and prejudiced against his company the subcommittee E conclusions as grossly unjust and misleading, such as no competent tribunal nor fair minded individual would draw from the evidence"
 Monopolization of the oil indus try i'll the United States is an inn possibility, he declared. He denied ] that there was any common under st5nding or price fixing agreement between the former constituents of the old Standard Oil group. The price of gasoline, he said, depended on the laws of supply and demand and on the prices received for pe- troieum by-products. Fuel oil at present, he declared, was heinz sold at loss and the deficit had to be made up from gasoline sales. Nc considerable price advance in gaso- line or other petroleum products was in sight, he said.
 "Gns" Movement shifts.
 "Of S5,00O barrels of gasoline now being produced every day in the mid-continent territory, 60,0o0 bar rels are being thrown into markets that offer the best returns. Today the movement may be into one state tomorrow into another. The com ssined production of the Standard Oil company of New Jersey Is 32,00t barrels daily. It is fact too patent to elaborate that the refiner on the Atlantic seaboard or elsewhere can not hold up an arbitrary price for gasoline or other petroleum products big surplus in the mid continent area at prices lower than those asked by the eastern refiner."
 MT. Bedford scoffed at the sug- eestion that the price of gasoline might rise to $1 a gallon. Substi- tutes, he said, could be produced al prices low enough and in quantities large enough to preclude such g possibility.
 Secs No Independent Influence.
 MT. Bedford placed no credence in the suggestion that independent oil companies had influenced the Sen. ate subcommittee in tho investiga- tion. He would assign no motive foI what he termed the unfair politl. cal move"
 The demand for crude oil in lit. tie more than . decade has increased from 125,o0o.o00 barrels 2 year tt 700, 100000 barrels. Mir. Bedford pointed out In the same period, ht said, the demand for gasoline hs. grown from a few million barrels yearly to 150,000,00 barrels; tn, number of oil wells in the United States from 42.oo0 to 100000 and ths refining capacity of the countr, from 100000 barrels day to 2,5O0.. 900 barrels.
 The tremendous impact of thi. demand,' he concluded, "almos overnight has made 1t necessary fol the industry to grow from a s700. O00, 1000 business to an $S,000, 000, ,00t one. Part of the money required fol this growth has come from the bus. mess and part from original invest. ments. The subcommittee has failed to make even the most cursory analysis of the fundamental fact. underlying the situation"