OIL: The Road to Disunity

The clamor of Texas independent oilmen for sharper cutbacks in oil imports was answered last week by a realistic voice, speaking, of all places, from Texas. The speaker: Houston's Will L. Clayton, one of Texas' elder statesmen, a founder of the giant Anderson. Clayton & Co., cotton firm, a onetime Under Secretary of State and Assistant Secretary of Commerce. Clayton's message to his fellow Texans who expect the Government to cut imports more: stop trying to promote the "special interest of certain oil producers against the national interest."

"Underneath all such efforts," said Clayton, "is an understandable human impulse to choke off competition, and protect prices and profits. Nevertheless, such attempts should be understood for what they are, and defeated. The U.S. has always prospered by using the cheapest available fuels." In the future, such fuel will be at a premium, as consumption keeps rising. "We should never forget that the U.S. has only about 20% of the proven oil reserves of the world, whereas we are consuming over half of the present production of oil in the world."

Economics aside, there is also the question of international politics. "The Russians are smart," said Clayton. "They roam around the world offering trade. We give away some millions here and some there. No self-respecting people want charity; they want to earn their way. To seize the initiative in the cold war, we must first make ourselves worthy of the leadership of the free world. But we will never do that so long as we continue to act in the short-term special interest of our minority groups." Concluded Clayton: "Our oil imports come partly from Venezuela (buyer annually of $1 billion of American goods, the economic equivalent of 250,000 American jobs), partly from Canada (our best customer in all the world), partly from the Middle East. Are we going to make all these areas mad just to maintain higher prices and big profits for domestic oil producers? If so, we are headed down the road to disunity in the free world and its eventual defeat."