Shell Game

The Senate investigation of the Eastern Seaboard oil shortage (TIME, Sept. 15) ended last week. Instead of proving once & for all whether there really was a shortage or whether Harold Ickes was just seeing ghosts, it left Washington as dazed as a bumpkin watching three walnut shells and a pea.

Senator Francis T. Maloney's committee, picking up the shells one at a time, seemed to reveal no pea at all. After listening to eleven days of testimony, it reported flatly that there was no shortage: the railroads could provide 20,000 now idle tank cars to transport 200,000 bbl. a day, more than enough to make up for the diversion of tankers. It recommended that Ickes drop his filling-station curfew, his 10% cut in deliveries to distributors, above all his shrieks and alarms. Said the committee, giving Honest Harold the lumps: "... Had an adequate analysis been made . . . the confusion of the past few months might have been avoided." But Ickes' men, lifting the same shells, found a pea under every one. Assistant Petroleum Coordinator Ralph K. Davies answered the Senate report by denying every word. He still believed that there was a shortage of about 174,000 gallons a day; the 20,000 idle tank cars were a myth. The gas curfew and 10% cut would stick, no matter what the Senate thought.

This illusory effect was caused chiefly by different interpretations of how much extra oil could be carried in the tank cars, which are leased or owned by private shippers. They are "idle" because the whole tank-car fleet (150,000 cars) unquestionably has not been used to full efficiency in the past. Last week the Interstate Commerce Commission hastily approved new rail rates--about 25% lower on gasoline, 27-40% lower on crude oil--which will give both oilmen and railroads a chance to prove how much more they can haul.

But both interpretations overlooked two imponderables which are much more important than.all the facts: 1) How many more tankers will the U.S. have to give Britain (in addition to the 80 already transferred)? 2) Will Navy activity in the Atlantic increase to the point where huge new supplies of oil-- will be required? It does not really matter whether there is an Eastern Seaboard shortage--as of today--or not. There may very well be one (or a worse one) tomorrow.

With the shortage presented in terms of tank-car and tanker capacity, there were bound to be public gripes at the gas curfew, Senate swats at the unpopular man who thought it up. Mr. Ickes had evidently tried to sell his conservation program on the wrong basis.

Editorialized the New York Times: "There would never have been any 'confusion' ... if it had once been explained that the real oil shortage lies in the need to build up a surplus against the possible needs of the Navy. Once that real need is made clear to the people . . . there will be instant readiness to conserve."

-- A British battleship takes 840,000 U. S. gallons of fuel oil (enough to heat a house for 350 years) at a single loading; a four-motored bomber flying from London to Berlin and back takes 4,560 gallons of gasoline (enough to drive an automobile 75,000 miles).

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