One day last June heavy-jowled Oilman Harry Ford Sinclair, sick & tired of the red ink on the ledgers of his sprawling Consolidated Oil Corp., fixed his steely blue eyes on the brawling petroleum industry and made a statement for all to hear. Said he: "The price of [finished] products must go up or the price of raw material must go down."
So saying, he upped the price of his principal finished product (gasoline) by a half-cent a gallon in 42 States where Consolidated's wholly-owned subsidiary, Sinclair Refining Co., has filling stations. This was an invitation for the rest of the...