Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-12
BY WILLIAM HARD.

The oil industry continues to provide
the National Capital and the country
with the most amazing and revolution
airy illustration current Of an American
industry implorlng the American Gov
eminent to help it get rid OF the old
American individualism and to help 1t
to organize itself on a new conectivist
public-control basis.
The conference In Washington last
week between the four members OF the
Federal Oil Conservation Board and the
10 official representatives Of the Cover
nors Of our 10 principal oil-proouchg
States is regarded here by many obSerV-
ers as marking the beginning Of a sort
of modified State Socialism in America.
The prospect produced by the confer
ence, when analysed through TO It's
finish, Is as follows:
Secretary of the Interior Wilbur, Sec
rotary Of Commerce Lamont, Secretary
of the Navy Adams and Secretary OF
War Hurley, acting as the Federal on
Conservation Board, will from time TO
time appoint a committee of economists
and calculators who will publish fore
cast Of how much oil the country Is
likely to need and an estimate also OF
how much oil each oil State should
thereupon produce. This is precisely the
sort of thing that no private trade as
ISOLATION" Of oil men would be permitted
by Attorney General Mitchell to do as
long as the Sherman antitrust law IS
upon the statute books.
In order that it should be done at all,
the Government must do it-that Is, IN
order that 1t should be done at all, 1t
has to be done not by private initiative
and enterprise, but by public interven-
ton and leadership. Therefore, since
It is now deemed necessary for the well
fare of the oil industry and since 1t Is
demanded by the oil industry, it Is 60
ing to get done that way. These oil
men, who are all Of them rugged In
dividualists," are making us sociahstic
much faster than any of the writings
or talkings of Norman Thomas, the
head Of the Socialist party.
Next! The 10 official representatives
Of the Governors of our 10 principal
oil-producing States, headed by Cicero
l. Murray. cousin of Gov. Alfalfa Bill
Murray of Oklahoma, are of TO their
homes with some sort Of tentative draft
in their possession for an Interstate
EOTlDdEt NIllCil Will illdhC EdNlA VI tlit
10 States into q sort of governmental
overload of the oil industry within its
borders and which will make the 10
States together into a sort Of govern
mental oil trust for the country.
The second of these two objectives is
in logic the first. The 10 States will
sign a treaty among themselves whereby
10-State Oil Steering Committee. This
Steering Committee will be the inter
mediary between the Federal Govern
ment and the States. 1t will receive
and consider the forecasts of the coun-
tryS oil needs and the estimates Of
proper State-by-State oil producings
and marketings as calculated and pub
lished by the statistical planning COM
mittees of the Federal Oil Conservation
Board. 1t will perhaps revise and
amend these forecasts and estimates. 1t
will perhaps take them as they stand.
1t will in any case, under the 'inter-
state compact" transmit them to the
10 State capitals to be put into effect by
the 10 State governments.
Then will come the real uprOoting of
American individualism as practiced by
the pioneer forefatherS." Several State
overnments-notably Oklahoma and
Texas and California-are already Wig
orously trying to tell their oil citizens
how much oil they can take out of their
own oil wells. We now, in order to pre-
vent demoralizing and impoverishing
overproduction, are summoned to go
farther-much farther.
The 10 representatives here last week
of our 10 principal oil-producing States
informed the Federal Oil Conservation
Board frankly that they proposed to try
to limit unnecessary drilling
IS. they intend to try to tel farmer
that he cannot even sink a we'll on his
own farm if the sinking of it wculd be
likely to accomplish what is getting
accomplished in East Texas today.
In East TeS-s the discovery of a pro-
life new oil pool and the unrestrained
drilling of it as thr-wn into the ma
tional oil scket an actually and a
prospect Of so much extra oil as to
create the possibility that the price of
oil, crude, per barrel, may go down to
81 cents. A price of so cents is virtually
r0inous to the West in general. A price
of 20 would mean appalling devastation
ana restitution.
x X * x
Shall that condition be welcomed as
the natural fruit of free competition
snG of rugged lndividualism? Two years
ago, when Secretary Of the Interior Will
bur sent MI Mark l.. Requa as his rep
ressntstive to Colorado Springs, Colo,
to tell the assembled officlaI spokesman
of the oil-producing States that they
should combine their ideas and combine
their States into jcint restraint of in
dividualistic competitive anarchy, Mr..
Requa was hooted and in rhetorical eff
feet rotten-egged. This last week the
assembled official spokesman of those
same States journeyed all the way to
Washington unsmilingly and sclemnly
to present TO Mr.. Wilbur his own Colo
RADIO Springs proposition for his gra-
cious acceptance. He unsmIlingly and