The world's biggest oil companies faced ruin in the summer of 1931. Crude prices had plummeted. Wildcatters were selling oil from the bonanza East Texas field for a nickel a barrel, cheaper than a bowl of chili. On Aug. 17, Governor Ross Sterling declared a state of insurrection in four counties and sent 1,100 National Guard-troops to shut down the fields and bring order to the market. A month later the Railroad Commission of Texas handed out strict production quotas. That heavy-handed intervention in the free market was remarkable enough. Even more remarkable was who pulled it off. The person in charge of shutting down the wild-" 1carters, National Guard Brigadier General Jacob Wolters, was the general counsel of Texas Co., an ancestor of Chevron. And the Texas governor who ordered Wolters in was a past president of Humble Oil and Refining, a forerunner of ExxonMobil. Big Oil played hardball in those days.
展开▼
