Civil War. It would dig a dozen Panama Canals, and it represents more than one-third of the values that legislation has permitted to remain in the entire transportation system of the United States. But where are the "Coal Oil Johnnies," the original diggers for oil and their early millions?
The Standard Oil Company made its millions where millions are always made, in material service to the widest number of consumers. The "independent" producer in the United States formerly had one main customer. He never had half a dozen people bidding for his oil. The producer of fuel oil to-day has the world for his customer so far as he can reach the world by pipe lines or ships. Still his customer must be a refiner or a fuel oil burner. But it is a wicked waste today to burn the unrefined crude oil from any oil field in the world.
A forty-two gallon barrel of crude Mexican oil is worth only about sixty cents on the Gulf of Mexico. Ten per cent of it is gasolene and there are many Mexican oils from which a good deal more than ten per cent in gasolene can be taken. In the topping plant at Tampico it is separated at a cost of less than one cent a gallon for the gasolene, and the wastage in handling this gallon
