Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1939-08-19

those-some large concerns, some med
ium sized. and some small-who sup
ported conservation policies in one place
and opposed them in another. Some had
their reasons. Some were driven to the
position they took by the lack of fore
sight on the part Of others. Some who
are vocally supporting conservation are
by their conduct making 1t difficult
Louisiana has a situation which is
being opened to the sunlight, every
body was doing it, seems to be the ex-
cuse there for conduct which the courts
must handle.
Texas has long had its "hot-oilers."
Punishment of these has been long de-
lsyed and made ineffective because the
Department of Justice has been too busy
harassing the constructive elements in the
industry to lend its support to efficient
agencies of the government in suppress
sing hot oil violators.
other sections have thought them
selves sufficiently isolated so they need
not be part of the national program. All
Of us have been too slow in recogni-
ton of the fact that every phase of the
oil industry has direct relation to every
other phase.
Majors and minors alike have been
guilty. Many of the majors have long
suffered from lack of managerial Lead.
ership. Tremendous creatures of prehis-
toric days had several brains; one in
the head, one in the center one in the
tail, and sometimes a few spares here and
there. These various brains or ganglia
were not always coordinated These Gre
atures are no more. They were soon ELI
minated by smaller creatures with one
brain which they used IT H. White in
his fantasy 1.-The Sword in the Stone"
tells of two Majors of the primeval ooze,
the Atlantosaurus immanis, 115 feet long
with an extra brain rat the other end of
him to take care of his tall. who lived
by browsing on trees and was harmless,
except to the tree-frogs which he
munched by mistake among the boughs"
and also the Ceratosaurus nascornis who
decmated his adversaries and fed upon
their carcasses until none were left and
so he died.) So with some of the "big
fellows. Production brains. pipe line
brains, refinery brains, marketing brains,
all merrily clicking away, without coordi-
nation. The record of some "big fellows
in the petroleum industry is like the rec
ords of the tyrannosauros. They "got by
on their size-for enthusiastically the
lack of coordinated intelligence gets in
its work.
$50 far as we know, no head of any
large refinery has any idea that his
company has an excess of gasoline yet
the office boy in the statistical depart
ment can look at a chart and tell this.)
Not every small unit has clear bill of
health. Smart tricks. petty practices,
town-lot drilling. evasion of the law,
dead wells listed as producers to get
extra barrelage-a whole list of cheap
schemes have characteriz-
ed too many.
Many small producers have fought
programs which might have saved them,
not because they thought the program
was bad but because they thought they
Nigh "clean up" before their wasteful
and questionable practices were halted
In the petroleum industry, bigness is
not a crime nor is the smallness of a
mans operations a guarantee of virtue
When the record is written-and it may
be written in full detail-some big and
some little alike may be pilloried before
the mocking gaze of the world.
BUT-the industry at large is not
guilty. No one can draw an indictment
against the industry as a whole Honest
men, thoughtful men, looking past to-
morrow into next year, have issued
after warning.