As today, huge companies placed large place facilities in small towns to to ensure their local control. Then a Kansas City-based, Communist Party District Organizer, Hugo Oehler describes an industrial suburb of that city, Sugar Creek, completely in the behemoth hands of Standard Oil.

‘How Standard Oil Dominates Sugar Creek’ by Hugo Oehler from the Daily Worker. Vol. 3 No. 103. May 12, 1926.

FIVE miles east of Kansas City, halfway to Independence, Missouri, on the main road, not far from the Missouri river, in Sugar Creek, Missouri. Altho the street cars and interurban cars in and around Kansas City are plentiful, this little city is isolated. One is compelled to walk. If he is fortunate enough to own an auto he can ride. The main street is paved. The side streets are most always muddy. Picket fences stands between the streets and the small shacks of the workers. To the north of the town looms large smokestacks pouring their smoke skyward–the silent impressive monuments of the autocrat that rules.

That is the first impression. When one looks closer he sees more defects. No lighted streets, sewers in a few places just being laid, repairs needed badly, not even wooden sidewalks.

Climbing a hill near the town you see over two dozen large cement smokestacks, many tanks, many unfinished structures–all denoting a busy industrial life.

Standard Oil Only Industry.

The only industry in Sugar Creek is that of the Standard Oil (Indiana). The refinery has a pipeline direct from the Oklahoma oil fields bringing in the bulk supply of oil that keep 1100 workers busy.

On the main street are a few necessary stores: grocer, drug store, barber, hardware, etc., that serve the workers and their families, 4,000 in all. The lives of these workers and their families are ruled by the Standard Oil company. Do their bidding or leave the city and find another boss.

Use Company Union to Hit Workers.

In the post-war period a company union was formed, divided into crafts and modeled to suit the taste of Standard Oil. In 1919 when prices were going up and wages down, the still cleaners struck and the other crafts stayed on the job. They lost. In the latter part of the same year the brick-masons went out on strike and again the other crafts worked on and laborers making 52c an hour took their places. Again they lost, and again many went back to work under the old conditions. This was the end of the company union, because many refused to pay dues and others had nothing to do with it. It served its purpose, so the company was also willing to let it die. Today only the brickmakers hold a charter.

The company ruled inside the plant. It was not satisfied to rule the shop alone. It decided that the city should be incorporated, have sewers, lighted streets, mayor, police and everything. They launched a campaign. The company pledged that if a city were established they would pay thousands of dollars in taxes to the city against the few that would have to be paid by individual workers. The workers fell for it. The workers obeyed off work as they had at work, Standard Oil won. The city has “everything,” including a nice new police station.

Superintendent is Mayor.

The city election, put in office as mayor the assistant superintendent of the Standard Oil plants. He was boss inside the plant, he became boss outside the plant.

The city has a boosters’ club for the merchants, a company ball team for the boys and bootleg parlors run wide open. Raids are sometimes staged as it is “necessary” for the “Interests of law and order.” On these occasions the foreign-born minority of the population are subject to discomfort.

Of the 1100 employed at the refinery about 200 are foreigners-mostly Slovaks.

Workers Must Fight Standard Oil.

The Standard Oil is the unquestioned boss in the plants and is the ruler of the city. Their control of workers during work hours and after work hours keeps the workers in a continual state of fear. In the past the ku klux klan was active in the interest of Standard Oil, but they have died. As long as the workers live here they belong to the Standard Oil. There is no escape by leaving. The workers of Sugar Creek must fight and win at Sugar Creek.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1926/1926-ny/v03-n103-NY-may-12-1926-DW-LOC.pdf