Indianapolis Times, Volume 43, Number 295, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 April 1932 — Page 8

PAGE 8

SUN. SETS ON ROMANCE IN U. S. OIL FIELDS Hard-Headed Business Methods Check Flow of Black Gold, Eliminate Gambling

Thi li the flnt of a eerie* at At* hfluaiva stories on Ihe dawn of anew era •* Mta nation's nil Indmlrt—an industry tht baa mat it* problem of prlrerrkllf overproduction hr definitely rnrtallinc It* output, with the rndi tht th* nrir* ha* risen t *1 a barrel after aoinc as low a* 10 rents. BY ROBERT TALLEY NEA Hervlre Writer (OsWtrlßbt. 1832. NEA Service. Inc.) 'T'ULSA, Okla., April 19.—Dollar-a-barrel oil Is back and with it looms anew era in the nation's oil Industry, now emerging from the worst year in Its history, which saw prices crash to 10 cents a barrel and even less. Strangely enough, an industry born of the greatest gamble the world ever saw—a gamble that made millionaires of barbers, drug clerks, teamsters and others almost overnight—ls the first to seek to stabilize itself and show other lines of business a path out of the depression. As the result, there now is another “vanishing American" here in the southwest, where the Indian and the buffalo roamed until a generation ago. He is the oil millionaire—that typically American product who came here broke, threw dice with fickle nature, struck it rich and soared to fabulous wealth in a few brief years. His day is over. For the oil industry has tossed aside the dice with which it wooed fickle nature and substituted hardheaded business methods and cold economics to cope with the changed conditions. Consequently, it has met its problem of overproduction by forcibly curtailing its output to market demand. nun A SERIES of price increases that culminated in the 15-cent jump to $1 a barrel which most of the purchasing companies made a few' days ago, is directly traceable to this policy. Governor (Alfalfa Bill) Muray of Oklahoma and Governor Ross Sterling of Texas started it last summer, when they sent troops to shut down the oil fields that were deluging the flooded market wdth 10-cent oil. Strict state proration laws followed this emergency move and definitely limited the oil output. The book has closed on the romantic chapter in American history that bred overnight millionaires. Old-timers shake their heads as they tell you that there, will be no more of these “comets" whose luck licked nature in a fair gamble, whose names became familiar on tank cars, the country over and adorned gasoline stations • from coast to coast as they built up great oil companies of their own. Even if they struck gushers and W’ere allowed to produce oil now, they would be up against a stone wall of cold economics in trying to build great companies like their adventurous predecessors. Times have changed. The opportunity for shoe-string development no longer exists. Eighty-five per cent of the business now is in the hands of the big companies, well

i GIRLS! If You SKSPf\ I I Loved a Man ■ 0^ N him rom vour jfl HP®! I J het^ jKg GOLD WYN-MAYER I THE TALKIE e , life WEtSJ Imagine! This is twice the length of an ordinary pic* ture —because it has some* thing to say, and it says it ALL STAR with thrills! CAST* Do you applaud /yjBL wotkr JORDAN I motion pictures? VxJ| TZ"ov^ t YOU WILL APPLAUD VWi t^*”" 11 THIS ONEr Robart YOUNO I Nail HAMILTON I Starts FRIDAY £m T 2™ I gbgar jjjji A W * J ' f £ Victor FinuM Hr R 9 J| 9 fromJ. r pton Sinclair'i I

equipped with tremendous refineries, pipe lines, and distributing outlets and fully prepared to hold the market against newcomers. nan THERE is probably no more glamorous page In American history than the rise of some of these, oil kings who found opportunity for sudden riches a few years ago.. They were history’s greatest ! gamblers in the greatest gamble the world ever saw—the race for oil when the industry was young and the nation’s automobiles were increasing by millions each year. Each got his start by hitting what a race track fan might consider the equivalent of a 1,000-to-l shot. He 1 pyramided his winnings, borrow'ed every dollar he could get. kept tossing his chips back into the pot. On the crest of a market that had never done anything but advance, he rode to riches. Harry Sinclair, recently named chairman of a billion-dollar consolidation, was one of them. He started life as a drug store clerk in Independence, Kan., invested in oil with money he collected from accident insurance when he shot himself while rabbit hunting, found luck was with him, and started up the ladder of fortune. William G. Skelly, president of the widespread Skelly Oil Company, was a teamster in the Pennsylvania oil fields. Twenty years ago he came west to try his luck as a producer, “struck it rich" in Texas’ famous Burkburnett pool, became independently wealthy in two years and in seven years built up the largest independent oil company In the world. * * K Frank Phillips, president of the Phillips Petroleum Company, once was a barber shop proprietor in lowa. He came to Oklahoma, made a rich strike and ran up a personal fortune which was estimated a few years ago at from $30,000,000 to S4O - 00,000. His hobby is a 3.600-acre ranch near Bartlesville, where he has rare animals and birds from all over the world. Including white deer from Russia and sacred cattle from India. L. E. Phillips, general manager of j the company, was a country school! teacher in lowa before he came here j and joined Interests with his broth-j er. He, too, became many times! a millionaire. Waite Phillips, a third brother,! ran awßy from their lowa farm when he was 16—and by the Mjne he was 43 he was forty times a millionaire. After roaming the northwest as a laborer, he came here, joined his brothers, soon entered business for himself, became a big producer as his wells multiplied. Most dramatic of all was the rise —and fall—of Joshua S. Cosden. After working as a street car motorman in Baltimore, he came out here to try his luck in the oil fields and built up a fortune of more than $20,000,000. And then he lost it.

MOTION PICTURES

Jan. 1931, $1,07 BbL Anri! 1932 Bbl

This chart shows how the price of oil fell as the result of last summer’s tremendous overproduction and how it has since risen as the result of curtailment of the output to a level akin to market demands. Three of the oil kings who rose to riches almost overnight when the industry was reckless gamble, and whose success could not be duplicated today, are also shown.

COSDEN came out to Oklahoma in 1910 with a man who had a new method for refining oil, and they opened a small refinery at Bigheart. Cosden, himself, drove a tank wagon and Mrs. Cosden did her own cooking and washed her own dishes in a tent in which they lived. The refinery venture was short lived, but Cosden became a producer and won in the gamble with nature. Wealth flowed in; he built a mag-

They came to LOOT -755 e/ stayed to LOVE/ |fcJW BjX Like wolves they swooped down on the village —to pillage, rob and destroy! jffIUKTJMHS&k /SUeI Sneerin 9 at decenc Y' scoffing at law, until they met face to face a mighty force | their twisted minds could not understand! They couldn’t get it, but it got them! |r^kfigl THE FROG with twisted body This child eveni your child Hard,defiant,brutal-hesneered Jr SHE WAS BAD hard boiled, eynicol ond M - HE WAS AWOIF buy^n*! sinking lower and lower. Ml M miroc,.. I wonC ACf* ' SYLVIA SIDNEY (HESTER MORRIS* WNG PICHEL • ROBERT COOGAN j JOHN WRAY * HOBART BOSWORTH |jk •• ■ and It’s Booked for an Extended Engagement of NINE Days! ' THE MISLEADIH6 LADY

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

nificent home in Tulsa with a SIO,OOO tennis court on its grounds, using clay imported from France. Seen after, Cosden was divorced from his first wife and married a young woman who was. socially prominent in Tulsa He set out to crash New York's “Four Hundred" and succeeded. He traveled in the social circles of the Astors. the Guggenheims and the Whitneys; he even entertained at his home the prince of Wales. During Cosden’s absence from his business his wealth began to fade.,

Eventually, he lost his Cosden Oil Company, now known as the Mid- ! Continental Petroleum Company, j A few years ago Cosden returned to make another fortune. Old friends backed him. In a comparatively short time he made enough to pay off his debts and had prospects of continued success until the depression interfered. nun THERE have been many other: colorful characters who have | risen to immense riches in the great

MOTION PICTURES

gamble of oil—but it is well to remember that for every man who came here and hit it rich, thousands failed. Even all those who rolled up big fortunes have not weathered the storm that came from the crashing prices and the general business depression. Any banker in Tulsa today can count you the numbers of oil men who were rated as millionaires a few years ago, but are not so rated now. Most prominent of those who have failed to survive the storm is E. W. Marland, founder and former head of the $100,000,000 Marland Oil Company, which has passed to Wall Street hands. Marland is now virtually broke and living amid the shadows of his former glory in a tiny outbuilding of his $2,500,000 mansion which he built a few years ago when he had

r DINE and T„ CE Charley De Sautelle Orchestra Everr Nile Except Monday From 9 P. M. Until ? ? YANTIS - TOSTEE SHOPPE Meridian at 33rd Street AMUSEMENTS JORDAN RIVER i REVUE Hth Annual Production of y|| Indiana University’s Spar- ||g kiing Musical Show. College ggg humor, dance and song. Com- I pany of 80 Co-Eds and Men. SAT., ENGLISH Mat. & Ni*ht, 2:15 * 8:15 |j|§ Mat.. SOr. 7Ho. *1 Niffht, 50c. #l. *1.50. *2 I Rox Office Opens Tomorrow PJ| ■§ 11 VTi Phone Ri.727~ uSSiliafij now BERKELL PLAYERS “UNEXPECTED HUSBAND” THB SHOW of toot J-4UGHS | MATINEE WED., TIU.HS., BAT. | NIGHTS. C,oc. 35c. MATS.. 35c. 25e. NFXTWEEK “GETTING GERTIE'S GARTER” WITH IDABEI.EE ARNOLD

a personal fortune of $30,000,000 and an income of $1,000,000 a year. Next: The story of Marland .. . formerly the head of a $100,000,000

AMUSEMENTS I SUE CAROL nnd NICK STUART —IN PERSONI Joan BENNETT and JOHN BOLES “CARELESS LADY" | MOTION PICTURES Women Thrill at lt Romanes! Men Mar Yet at Its Paring! ■222*3 x WALTER WINCHELL T In “The Bard es Drodwijr” A 3lerry Melody Cartoon AWNSNMLNp™ NEXT FRIDAY [I KAY FRANCIS. “MAN WANTED” II

BrONKsr|3 P^IBIAfIONS NEI&HBORHOQfeTH

NORTH SIDE |e4| J ifu Conr * e Leila Hyams in Franks”—Comedy ■ liMTwin Feature Family Lionel Aiwilt in The Silent Witness”—“Drums of Talbot at 22nd St. Family Nile ■mPHBPjHHVR Leila Drams “FREAKS” SOUTH SIDE PHWSWWEW 2203 Shelbv St. rcTllSl lOr to All John Gilbert in “THE PHANTOM OF PARIS WEST SIDE \V. Wash. A Belmont ■ L \ [*T7hl|t Family Nil* Gloria Swanson in “TONIGHT OR NEVER” D 2540 w7~Mich~St.~ Miriam Hopkins Jack Oakie in “DANCERS IN THE DARK”

-APRIL 19, 1932 '

company and now broke, who seek* election to congress this year on a platform for protecting the nation's millions of small investors “the money trust of Wall Street.”

MOTION PICTURES 111 l Premiere Thurs. Nitel DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, Jr. I“lt’* Tough To Be Fiidoii*’! I ROBERT j MOHTGOMERyj -BUT THE FLESH IS WEAK/* \ A Metro-Goldwyn-M~ayer Pieters

EAST SIDE jMMF JFzF “MURDERS IN RUE MORGUE" IfIWJWJWWfR 1502 Gonsevelt AYe. uluikl i/11111l Family Nit# Ronald Colman la THE UNHOLY GARDEN" JSFTajPBSW 4630 E - ,oth ~ 8t ~ Nancy Carroll in “BROKEN LULLABY” E. New 81l a.H Family Nile ■MnHM fn “LOVERS COURAGEOUS” e. toth inaflyHl Chic In “THE EXPERT” ■■■■■■■)■■ 202 F. Wash. || *1 ' I I 10c to All Lionel Atwlll in “THE SILENT ’WITNESS”