New Oil

One night last week a radio voice was saying: "No honest stockholder in any company wants profits derived from compromise with right, nor would he willingly permit, much less expect, any act to be performed by any one representing the company, from the president to the office boy, which he would not himself be willing to perform. This is a position which cannot be too strongly stated. It is a platform on which I have always stood like the rock of Gibraltar. . . ."

Many a radio owner, having dialed into this discourse unexpectedly, at once dialed out again unimpressed by such palpable truisms. But many another did not dial out, having listened from the beginning or been struck by the unusually earnest ring in the speaker's voice. It sounded like a man who had freshly experienced the value of honesty as a policy.

Gibraltar rock reference led some listeners to suppose that the speaker was a life insurance man. Actually it was an oilman. It was John D. Rockefeller Jr., than whom, at that moment, few citizens had better excuse from moralizing in publicity. Mr. Rockefeller had just returned from Washington, where he had testified touching the oil scandals, to the Senate Committee on Public Lands, in a manner that was unique for an oilman. Mr. Rockefeller had been frank, friendly, helpful.

Mr. Rockefeller's visit to Washington resulted from the Committee's discovery that it was Mr. Rockefeller, not Col. Robert W. Stewart's respect for the Senate, that persuaded Col. Stewart to return last fortnight from Havana to tell what he knew about Oilman Harry Ford Sinclair's celebrated Continental Trading Co. (TIME, Feb. 13). Col. Stewart, broad midWesterner, is board chairman of the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana. Rockefellers now control less than 15% of that company but "Standard Oil" means "Rockefeller" the world over. ". . . Nothing short of the fullest and most complete statement . . . can clear the skirts of those who, like yourself, have no improper connection with the transactions . . . and remove the cloud of suspicion which hangs over the entire oil industry." So wrote Oilman Rockefeller to Oilman Stewart, with immediate effect. When Oilman Stewart reached Washington, however, he chose to be arrested for contempt of the Senate sooner than tell all he knew. Mr. Rockefeller, when it was his turn to take the stand, declared he still had faith in Col. Stewart but went on to say:

"I am bitterly disappointed--more so than you gentlemen can be--that he did not answer all the questions asked of him. ... I want to add this further word if I may, that I think business in general is under serious criticism whether justly or unjustly, at this time. I know from personal experience that there are a great many able and honorable and upright men in the oil business. . . ."

As to the suspected transactions of the Continental Trading Co., Mr. Rockefeller said he knew nothing. Senator Walsh and his fellow inquisitors believed him. They thanked Mr. Rockefeller and, turning to another aspect of the case, delved abruptly into records of the National Republican Committee of 1921-1924.