Finance: Oil

A similar and even more striking case of climbing prices and record production is afforded by the petroleum industry. Crude oil has been marked up 25¢ to $1.75 per barrel by several prominent companies, notably the Texas Company and the Humble Oil and Refining Company. Yet the daily average production of 1,801,800 barrels for the period ending March 10 has established a new high record for the history of this country. The recent difficulties in the coal industry have probably proved of importance in the steadily widening employment of fuel oil.

The mounting price for petroleum products has not gone without an accompaniment of verbal fireworks. Senator La Follette could not quite bear to leave Washington this session without a final and characteristic fling at the " Standard Oil monopoly." In rebuttal, President W. C. Teagle of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey rather brutally manhandled the Senator's prediction of "dollar gasoline " by pointing out that at about 30¢ industrial alcohol could successfully compete as automotive fuel. Hard on the heels of this exchange, Chairman Bedford, of the same company, issued an even more thought provoking and pessimistic statement concerning oil production in Mexico. Thus do the many and much criticized Wall Street rumors of last year concerning "salt water" finally find official confirmation.