net cost, freight, inspection, cost of barrels and cost of marketing. The selling price was given and the margin of profit computed. The selling price of water-white from tank-wagons (it is customary for Standard tank-wagons to deliver oil from their stations to local dealers) ranged from 8½ to 11½ cents, and the profit on the oil sold from the wagons varied from about one-half cent to over three cents.
Now, in considering these differences, liberal allowance for freight rates must be made. Something of what these allowances should be can be judged from the table of oil freights which the Industrial Commission published with its schedule of prices. From this table many interesting comparisons can be made. For instance, it cost the Standard Oil Company (if they paid the open rate their rivals did) 1.5 cents to send a gallon of oil from Whiting, Indiana, their supply station, to Mobile, Alabama. They sold their oil in Alabama at wholesale from 11½ to 16 cents. The net cost of this oil was under five cents in February, 1901. It cost them the same 1.5 cents to send a gallon of oil to Des Moines, Iowa (if they paid the open rate), but in Iowa they sold it from 7 to 11. The freight from Whiting to New Orleans was the same 1.5 cents, but prices in Louisiana ranged from 9 to 14 cents. According to the investigation the average wholesale price of oil, including freight, ranged from 8.27 in Pennsylvania to 25.78 in Nevada.
Freights and handling considered, there is, it is evident, nothing like a settled price or profit for illuminating oil in the United States. Now, there is no one who will not admit that it is for the good of the consumer that the normal market price of any commodity should be such as will give a fair and even profit all over the country. That is, that freights and expense of handling being considered, oil should sell at the same profit in Texas as in Ohio. That such must be the case where there is free and general competition is evident.
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