While there is some tough competition, it is arguable that no modern industry has engaged in as much corruption, graft, and exploitation as that of oil extraction. In the aftermath of the Tea Pot Dome Scandal, T.J. O’Flaherty looks down that poisoned well.

‘Robbing the Oil Slaves’ by T.J. O’Flaherty from the Daily Worker Saturday Supplement. Vol. 2 No. 2. March 19, 1924.

THE whole country is an uproar because a group of oil barons aided and abetted by the present administration in Washington were caught red-handed in the act of looting the government oil reserves. Senators, congressmen, publicists and all kinds of capitalist public men not involved in the oil graft are rushing frantically for the limelight to let the dear old “people” know how horrified they are that an administration under our blessed capitalist system could be so corrupt as to sell or barter that precious mineral substance upon which our naval bill collectors will depend in the near future for their motive power.

The Capitalist State.

And the “people” are actually shocked except that small but conscious minority of this country’s working class population known as radicals or to be more definite, Communists. The Communists are neither surprised nor shocked. They are rather pleased that a capitalist administration should be so stupid as to give such striking testimony of what the Communists always have claimed, i.e., that this country with its untold wealth is the property of the capitalists who use the workers to turn its raw resources into finished products ready for consumption, which commodities are sold by the capitalists for profit.

Every four years the capitalist groups fight with each other for the possession of the government. Control of the machinery of government enables the controlling capitalist group to have first rights on the pickings and the loot, but when they become over confident and overstep the bounds of discretion, the “outs” jump in, wave the danger signal and help to kick them out and make room for a new set of looters. That is the significance of the present hullaballoo about the oil scandal.

It is true that the republican administration has been guilty of turning over the naval oil reserve lands to oil barons. They have aided in defrauding the country they were supposed to defend. For this they are denounced by their capitalist politicians of other parties. But none of these defenders of the United States ever said a single word during this entire expose those who are really robbed; the workers who make the profits that enabled Doheny, Sinclair and the rest of the oil barons to purchase the Coolidge administration and thru it grab the Teapot Dome and the California oil fields.

The Robbery of the Workers.

None of those who were and are so outraged about the Teapot Domes steal are concerned about the robbery of the workers who produce the oil, because they believe in the robber capitalist system. They are only concerned with the code of ethics generally followed by capitalist thieves, in their relations to each other. Only when one group of thieves steals a march on the others do they throw their usual secrecy to the winds and tell the world what is going on. That is the feature of the situation that the Communists relish, and the publicity they give the present oil scandal is distinctly for the purpose of throwing light on the real character of capitalist government and calling the attention of the workers to the necessity for doing away with the system that breeds such corruption.

The Communists are concerned entirely with the robbery of the workers in the oil industry by the Dohenys, Sinclairs, Standard Oil Company and all the other companies that exploit the oil resources of the United States for their own profit. How do the workers who produce the oil barons’ millions fare? What are their conditions of employment? What kind of houses do they live in? What is their social life? These are questions that will not receive any consideration in Washington; we take them up here in the columns of the DAILY WORKER.

$2.65 Per 84 Hours.

We will take the Elk Basin field in northern Wyoming-the Teapot Dome state-as a typical example. Elk Basin is described as “a hole in the ground, gouged out of the naked clay and sandstone. No water, no trees, no grass-not a living growing thing in sight save the straggling sage brush.” The Elk Basin oil production is controlled by the Standard Oil Company, masquerading under the aliases of the Ohio Oil and Midwest Oil companies.

When social workers take up the conditions of the oil workers with the saintly John D. Rockefeller, Jr., that gentleman refers them to the above named oil companies. They in turn pass the buck back to John D.

The hours of labor are 84 a week and the pay of an unskilled worker for the 84-hour week is $2.65 which, we hasten to add, includes board.

The bunk houses in Elk Basin are rather lively. Listen to what an investigator has to say of the sleeping accommodations:

“How are the bugs?’ I asked a man lounging outside, who I learned later was a mule skinner freighting thru the basin.”

“Try ’em and see” was the disgusted reply. “Last time I was here I killed an army corps of them in half an hour and took to the barn with my mules the rest of the night. Me for the hay life.'”

Married men and their families live in one-room shacks without plumbing or running water. Some of these families number from six to eight grown up boys and girls. They are compelled to live together in a single 10×14 tent.

Alkali Drinking Water.

The oil slaves are awakened at six in the morning by the “crum boss.’ The twelve-hour grind starts at seven and as one old slave put it, “When you finish the week’s work, you are good for nothing but John D.” He might add that the one week’s work merely marks the be- ginning of another. There is no interval for rest.

The drinking water in the Elk Basin is atrocious. It is alkali water pumped from wells two miles away and condensed for drinking. The condensing is so poor that the water is enough to turn any man’s stomach. The lumping of oatmeal and potato combinations into the condensing boiler to stop leaking flues, hardly improves the quality of the water.

Sanctimonious John D.

There is one shower bath in operation in the Ohio company’s wash. house. The employes of the Midwest company are, however, not allowed to use it. The shower at the Midwest has been out of order for some years.

“While John D. is sittin’ on a soft cushion in church on Easter mornin’ praisin’ God in his goodness to him, I was out here pulling a well in the worst blizzard seen around here for many years. God is good to the oil barons. They can pay preachers to praise Him–paid from the profits made by their oil slaves.”

The slaves of the Ohio Oil Company WORK TWELVE HOURS A DAY 365 DAYS IN THE YEAR THEY NEVER GET A HOLIDAY.

The oil companies cannot afford to give their employes a six-day week and an eight-hour day. The oil companies admit it! But the following except from the Federal Trade Commission’s tentative revision of the net earnings on net in- vestment of the Midwest company for the last three years for which figures are given shows 43.2, 50.6, 44.4, respectfully, while the Ohio Oil Company due to dividends of 2,900 and 150 per cent, is paying 4,500 per cent on its original investment. Every nickel of this colossal profit was wrung out of the 84-hour week, 365-day year oil slaves. The looting of the oil reserve, the grafting of ex-Secretary of the Interior Fall, the corruption of the entire republican administration, pales into insignificance beside this colossal robbery of the poor workers who are defrauded of the fruits of their labor right on the job.

“Why don’t you organize?” was a question put to an oil worker by a newspaper reporter.

“Organize hell–try it and see,” was his reply.

The Slimy Octopus.

Two men tried it in the Elk Basin and lasted two weeks on the job. When the companies post a wage reduction, the insinuation goes with it that anybody who does not like the job can leave.

These are the conditions under which those who produce the swollen fortunes of the oil barons live. According to a United States government report 80 per cent of the oil workers in this country work a seven-day week of 84 hours With the profits from their labors the oil companies instigate counter-revolutions in Mexico, reach out into distant Mesopotamia, Persia, China and all over the world leaving a trail of civil wars and corruption in their wake. With these profits the oil companies buy up the agencies that manufacture opinion, the press, the pulpit and the colleges. They buy senators, congressmen, state legislatures and the cabinet. That is the essence of the present oil scandal.

It is a matter of great importance to the workers that a set of capitalist burglars were caught in the act of looting the country. It helps to arouse the masses to the necessity for getting rid of all the burg- lars that run this country and rule it by force in their own interests. The republicans were caught hawking the oil fields. The democrats are mad because they did not have the privilege of doing the looting. The workers who are the real victims, are not considered by the capitalist parties.

Remember June 17th!

It is our duty to stress this feature of the present crisis and call on the workers to rally to the standard of the Farmer-Labor Party which will hold its convention in Minneapolis on June 17th and organize the exploited workers of this country, in all industries as well as the oil industry, on the political field, to eject the capitalist robbers from the government, and prepare for the establishment of a Workers’ Republic in the United States, run by the producers for the benefit of those who render useful service to society.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1924/v02a-n002-supplement-mar-19-1924-DW-LOC.pdf