Abstract

Covering Washington

Hardly, a week had elapsed after the Standard Oil Co.'s formal declaration of a world-wide price-cutting war upon the Royal Dutch-Shell, before Secretary of the Navy Wilbur, doubtless stirred by deep patriotic impulses, hurled the navy into the fray on the side of the Standard. Learning the Honolulu company which leases and operates Naval Reserve No. 2 in California, was selling a large share of its product to Shell, the indignant Secretary appointed a board of Rear Admirals to investigate and recommend "remedial" measures. In contemplating the impropriety of such an act it is well to remember that British Government officials are among the largest owners of stock in the Dutch-Shell--a circumstance which prompted British officials to announce, at the outset, that their government would keep hands off in this conflict of industrial giants.