Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-01-23 | Page 10 | House will Fight Oil Bill, Says Pittman

; HOUSE WILL FIGHT OIL! i BILL SAYS PIT TH i - Nevada Senator Avers Con- i gress Has No Intention of Government Leasing, r"EXVi";u, C.Mo., Jan. II-. Senator Pitt--ir. an of Sf.vHia, ppcaLinj,' to-Jay to th American illninj? congress here, tte'AwA conpe-sfi ban no intent ion of -:-:1 oiiiiincr Mm lcaain? Hytttein to irjfl;i lilrV-rous mining, min-ing, and if tho PittniA-n-Walnh oil and o;il land k:J)stns Mil heromes a law, Mie leasing question, as far as thft vf st ia ron'nrnfd, would bp. HOttlM for yonrs. "On the rontiiij',',-' the Nevada, senator sena-tor adde-J, "If t lie ponding loRiHlnMon vhfrh has already parser! Mie senate irf defeated and the maUfr drifts on as il l:as drifted tor ye.irs, tlin It if ponsihiM tluit conrftHM, in doHporaiion and in need of resources, may take bold of all of the lande, main Iliferoun and non-niet.fi lllfer-oua, lllfer-oua, and develop them a:i government I-rojr.ta. TJils in not drifting towurd the leasing of rnftalli ferouH mines, but it is the. final destination of a poliry Rgalnst tbfl least 11 1; -f metalliferous mines." KeiiH tor Pitt man Raid tho oil leasing bill reprt'Ments the maximum of what i-an bi expected from tlio Semite, and admit-. admit-. ind a hard tilit would bo nerefiary to nans it in tho hougft. lie said citizens of western slates malnttiined that the public lands and all the.y contain are held in trust and have always hve-n held in i rust for t he peuplo of t.lie states. Instead In-stead of belief in this principle be'-ornin Mromter in congress, Sena tor Pitt man :cclaivd it 1 ii.y rfM-eived let a .support l'rom year to 3 ear, and now at least a majority ma-jority In the senato opposes the, theory, and maintains that tho public hinds and the minerals and wealth t herein contained con-tained Hie tho property of ell the people of the United States und should be administered ad-ministered by all of the people, of the Unit id States. For that reason he urged tho people of the western states to be unselfish In their demand for new legislation. "Tho insistence of enthusiast enthusi-ast and those having personal Interests to impose upon a bill an amendment that is obnoxious to the majority is the rut-st: rut-st: moans of defeating legislation,1' Senator Sen-ator Plttman said. "The oil leasing bill," Senator rjttman fiaid, "was passed by tho senate despite tho efforts of opponents who used ne-I ne-I farious means of defeating it. "These propagandists, who had ample money to purchase the expensive pages 1of great daily papers, attempted," he said, i "to play upon the prejudice and fears of senators by declaring the bill to be drawn 1 in tho interest of tho Standard Oil company. com-pany. The gentlemen who signed these statements had every opportunity to appear ap-pear before the public lands committee and give such facts as they possessed. ; They did not come. Thev did not renre-1 renre-1 sent the Independent oil operators of Wyoming, whom they would have liked , to have had the senate believe that they did represent. On the contrary, they represented a. subsidiary corporation of . the Royul Dutch Shell company, as pow-1 pow-1 crful a monopoly as the Standard Oil j company and n corporation that is per-1 per-1 1 manently controlled by foreign capital. 1 1 am glad to say tho committee of the 1 independent oil operators of Wyoming ! denied any connection with thia propaganda, propa-ganda, and repudiated tt. "The records of the public, land office disclosod that the Standard Oil company was only Interested in 260 acres out of the 20,000.000 acres that might come un-1 un-1 del the remedial provisions of the bill. 1 T am not here to question the motives that prompted this propaganda, but I know that its only effect was endeavors - not only to defeat tho bill under consid-' consid-' eration, but any legislation of a similar , character. I am stating this as a warn-, warn-, ing against any similar procedure in the future."