Business: Again, Hot Oil

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Most citizens of East Texas look on the Connally "Hot Oil" Act of 1935 (which makes it a Federal offense to ship in interstate commerce more oil than the quotas set up by the Texas Railroad Commission) with the same sort of amused tolerance with which they once looked on the 18th Amendment. Millions of barrels of hot oil have been pumped out of the ground, and numerous minor employes of small companies have been indicted. But the startling fact is that no oil man who maintained his innocence has been tried for violation of the Connally Act.

Month and a half ago. however, a Federal grand jury brought in indictments against John W. Gilliland, president of Bell General Pipe Line Co. of Gladewater, and 24 others, most of them employes of Bell General and its subsidiaries. Bell General is considered the largest independent pipe line in the East Texas field, which indicated the Connally Act was at last to be invoked in earnest. By last week 23 of the 25 had posted bond. One of the other two was variously reported as being in Spain and the Samoa Islands.