Oil's P. C. C.

Just before he boarded Vincent Astor's Nourmahal to go fishing last week President Roosevelt appointed a Planning & Coordination Committee for the oil industry. It was the last big jig in the Government's design for oil's recovery. Congress had granted the President power to regulate oil shipped in interstate commerce. Oilmen had signed a code. Secretary of Interior Ickes had been named oil administrator. To oilmen most important of all was the P. C. C. Its 15 members would settle the key question of price-fixing. Checking off the appointees last week, oilmen soon saw that at least two-thirds of the P. C. C. frankly favored price-fixing, that only one, President Charles E. Arnott of Socony-Vacuum Corp.* was a die-hard freemarketer.

For President Teagle of Stanco, who led the fight for free oil prices, it was a bitter defeat. He had seen Sococal, often a maverick in the Standard family, stampede to the price-fixers, drawing Sohio with it. He had seen his $100,000-a-year vice president James Moffett resign to help draft the code. And last week he saw Price-fixer Moffett go on the P. C. C. as one of the NRA's three representatives, saw Presidents Kingsbury of Sococal and Holliday of Sohio go on as representatives of the industry. Only other company committeemen were Presidents Reeser of Barnsdall, Dawes of Pure Oil and Director Beaty of Phillips. All others except Socony-Vacuum's Arnott were trade association heads. The voices of the big companies, which have long regarded as a vested right their power to set the price for the whole industry, were muted.

The P. C. C. promptly went into an all-day huddle behind locked doors. With its advice & consent Secretary Ickes shot to the Governors of the oil states maximum production quotas, which slashed the U. S. flow more than 300,000 bbl. daily. He banned withdrawal of oil in storage, ordered imports held at the average for the last six months of 1932. But, said Mr. Ickes: "After a final analysis ... I decided we would not attempt to fix prices today. I wanted to see what effect this allocation order would have."

Oilmen heard, however, that the P. C. C. had decided to ask President Roosevelt this week to go ahead and price-fix. The ratio tentatively set is a barrel of crude at 18 1/2-times the price of gasoline per gallon.

Such action by the President, fixing the price of a major commodity, would not constitute a precedent with great implications for other commodities. Under NIRA, oil is set apart for special presidential treatment.

*Standard Oil Co. of New York formally adopted its trade name when it merged with Vacuum Oil two years ago. Other Standard trade names derived from corporate titles are Stanolind (Standard of Indiana), Sohio (Standard of Ohio), Stanco (Standard of New Jersey). Other Standard companies might use these:

Sococal (Standard of California)

Socokan (Standard of Kansas)

Socoky (Standard of Kentucky)

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