The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-02-11

One is something for which you can't blame the Government namely, that the time is not too far off when the present wartime rationing of gasoline may be a normal peacetime necessity. In other words, our oil reserves are running disastrously low.
 The other is something which the Roosevelt Administration could definitely prevent - that is, the manner in which little busi- ness is being swallowed up by big business.
 In the industrial East, it is the little manufacturer who is going out of business while six big com- panies have waXed fat on more than fifty per cent of all the war contracts. Out here, it is the little independent oil man who is gradually being put out of busi- ness by the low price of crude oil and the Strangling process of the major oil companies.
 Every week or so, in Wichita Falls, center of a Once-thriving Texas oil field, an independent sells out to the majors and re- tires from the game. The same is true in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and every other oil field except such bOnanzaS as East Texas, where oil still gusheS instead of being pumped.
 What most people don't realize is that about one-half the na- tion'S oil is produced, not by the big companies which splurge out the filling-station advertising, but by the little independents. In fact, it is the independents who have pioneered most of the na- tion'S wells, after which the maj ors buy them up.
 BIG COMPANIES
 FOR LOW PRICE
 Since the majors have to buy most of their crude oil, they are the last ones to want an increase in its price. They already have the price of gasoline fixed with a comfortable margin, and the lower the price of crude, the bet ter for them.
 That is why, secretly, they have been roofing behind their hands for the OPA and Economic Stab- ilizer Vinson, who have opposed a price increase in crude oil. How are Pew of Sun Oil, testifying at a hearing in Washington, frank ly admitted:'I am very keen on getting the cost of crude oil down as low as possible"
 This price-depressing position of the majors, plus their advan- tage of owning the pipelines, has made the oil industry one of the least profitable in the country as far as the independent is con- cerned.
 IrOnic part of the whole thing is that, before the war, the big companies were blocking high CT price for crude oil, but since the war the OPA does the blocking for them.
 ~AAAOUAACA 4oSC LA1dU LuOSL pSOplc don't realize is that out of the 100000 oil wells in this country, 300,000 are stripped wells. In other words, they are old wells which pump off one to three bar rels daily. These are the wells now being closed down. And once closed, with the pump and casing pulled, they are lost permanently to the nation. Never can they be reclaimed without prohibitive cost.
 Nevertheless, Washington still unwittingiy plays into the hands of big business.
 NOTE: Judge Vinson would be glad to give the stripper oil wells subsidies, but to date they have fought subsidies just as vigorously as they have fought for a price increase.
 WILKES POPU-
 LARITY IN TEXAS
 No matter what you may think of Wendell Willkie, those with their ears to the ground in the Southwest will tell you that he is the most popular Presidential candidate next to Roosevelt. In fact, they will tell you that he is the only Republican who would have a 50-50 chance of carrying Texas against the President. For
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