"Experimenting"

Some of the fiercest skirmishes in the battle of the codes in Washington last summer were fought around the question of price-fixing for the oil industry. After the code was safely signed and President Roosevelt had appointed a Planning & Co-Ordinating Committee on which the price-fixers outnumbered the free-marketers two to one, it looked as if price control was just around the corner. Secretary of Interior Ickes who was made oil administrator even held hearings on the schedules he intended to proclaim. But such die-hard free marketers as Standard of New Jersey's Teagle, Socony-Vacuum's Arnott, et al., had not abandoned their cause. They proposed an alternative and, having won over most of the large companies, they put it up to Secretary Ickes.

Last week it looked as if the free-marketers had won their point after all. Secretary Ickes squiggled his name to six involved documents approving purchase and marketing agreements already signed by 24 major producers, representing 85% of the industry. "Frankly," said Mr. Ickes, "I am experimenting." What he meant was that the Government, holding the price-fixing club behind its back, would let oilmen have a try at regulating themselves. They will do it by 1) forming a pool to buy up "distress" stocks of gasoline, thus stabilize prices and 2) setting up a new code of fair marketing practices which includes a curb on exclusive retail contracts and a guaranteed retailers' margin of 6-c- a gallon on high-octane gasoline, 3 3/4-c- on low-octane.

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