Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1940-02-24

WHERE ARE WE GOING TO
GET NEW OIL RESERVES?

The greatest problem in the United
States is the unemployment problem
not of men but of unemployed dollars.
Never in American history has it been
so difficult for an investor 10 put his
savings to work. New enterprises, offer
ing opportunity for speculative profits,
are a thing of the past. Following the
stock market crash the American people
demanded regulation of the stock mar
kets and as history always records, the
pendulum swung so far the other way
that public financing is a thing of the
past. So serious has the situation be-
come that presidential candidates are to-
day basing their campaigns on 4he issue.
They maintain that the reform movement
is akin to the farmer who troubled
by bears in the forest where he went to
get his wood for fuel, so he set fire and
burned the forest to get rid of the bears.
Obviously he succeeded but at the same
time was without wood for fuel.
BE that as it may, it is fact that
investors are harder hit than are the
swindlers. The swindlers are all gain
fully occupied in organizing ham-and-
eggs leagues. collecting dimes from the
aged, organizing" federal project work
ers and capitalizing the new "isms'' of
of the present day. But industry has
found no way to finance new enterprises
especially here in the West where ma
tural resources can be developed only by
outside money
The pendulum will doubtless swing
back and we will see the day when the
government will urge people to put their
money back into enterprises which will
build up new taxable wealth and provide
jobs for men. That is the American
way as contrasted with the European
Wav NJ rapimenfafi0n NJ al hucinnea and
throwing all men into economic serfdom
by making them employees of the state.
We doubt that such a thing will ever
come to pass in America
In the meantime. person who is try
ing to get ahead has a difficult problem
in choosing an investment. He must
have something that offers opportunity to
make more than bond interest. The
man who has saved 500 or even $500
cannot expect to get postage stamp money
at present interest rates. How he is go
ing to find out about any promising en-
terprise, is something that none of us
know. If there is a promising new en-
terprise in the state of Montana, or in
Arizona or in Utah, none in any other
state can ever find 1t out, under present
regulations of the security act. The
owner of the new enterprise Is not al
lowed to advertise and describe his pro-
position, so none can find out about 1t
except those to whom he can talk Those
seeking investment can never contact
him, as there is no established means
of such contact.
That is one factor that has greatly
influenced the Montana oil industry
Strange as 1t may seem, this Influence
has been GOOD. The inability of oil
companies to raise money to drill
wells has prevented the bringing In
of any new Montana oil fields since
1898 when the new securities laws
became effective. Cut Bank field
was already under way at that time
and no commercial field has been
developed since Out Bank.
At the same time there has been
little money available to develop present
proven territory in Montana oil fields.
Had money been available, 1t is certain
that alert operators would have picked
up the many leases that could be had