Socony-Vacuum Merger

In 1909 Standard Oil Co. of New York sold 92% of the petroleum products used in New York and New England. Last "year it sold 23%. Instead of gloomily contemplating this loss of dominance, last week Socony gladly told about it. The reason: to show the U. S. Government that oil conditions have vastly changed since the old Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey was dissolved in 1911, that Socony and Vacuum Oil Co., both units of the former trust, may now legally merge.

To prove that they may not merge, the Government last week summoned oil men great and small.

Typical of the great men's attitude was the testimony of Albert Clayton Woodman, president of Richfield Oil Corp. of New York, questioned by Assistant U. S. Attorney John Harlan Amen:

Amen: Is your company influenced by the prices established by Socony?

Woodman: We are not influenced by Socony any more than by half a dozen other companies.

Amen: W7hat company is dominant in the New York and New England field?

Woodman: No one company is dominant.

Far less unanimous than the great men were the small ones, engaged in retailing gasoline. Many of these, impressed by the fact that Socony usually is the first to change a price, felt sure it was dominant. Some stated that there was restraint of trade, that if they cut the price of gasoline no company would sell to them. Others testified no such fate would befall. Witness L. S. Hall, Gulf retailer in Concord, N. H., and the counsel for the defense went into a long discussion of Royal Dutch-Shell's activities. Asked whether he did not know that Gulf Oil Corp. of Pennsylvania was perhaps second in size only to Royal Dutch-Shell, honest Witness Hall replied, "I have no knowledge on the subject."

An important point revealed by another witness was that he had sold Socony and Vacuum products ir competition.

Thus, with confusing and contradictory testimony, began what may be the most important corporate trial of the year. Only one point seems certain so far: that if Standard Oil of New York and Vacuum do merge, it will not be this year.

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