La Follette Bites Back

When Senator La Follette's Committee investigating the oil industry made its report to the Senate, a fortnight ago, Standard Oil chiefs, headed by Mr. Walter C. Teagle, President of the New Jersey Standard, denounced the findings as political in nature.

The stormy petrel from Wisconsin has issued a stinging rejoinder. " The investigation was ordered by the Senate," he said. "It covered a period of many months of arduous labor. . . . The report has been published, and the testimony, which fully sustains the report, will be open to the public as soon as the printing is completed. They will be found upon examination to require neither explanation nor defense."

The report contains the following major accusations:

(1) That the Standard Oil Companies completely control the oil industry of the United States. That they have partitioned the territory of the United States among the member companies of the Standard group as spoils, and acting in perfect accord they (a) fix the price which the producer of crude oil receives at the well, (b) the price which the refiner receives for gasoline and kerosene, and

(c) the retail price which is paid by the consumer.

(2) That through the control of pipe lines connecting the great producing fields of the West with the consuming territory of the Middle West and East, the Standard companies monopolize the transportation of oil, nullify the law declaring pipe lines common carriers, render the possibility of effective competition by independent producers and refiners utterly futile.

" The report," concluded Senator La Follette, " is unanimous and is in no sense political."