Life and labor in the Mid -Continent oil fields, 1859–1945

492 Pages·026.94 MB·English

by  Parker, Albert Raymond

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THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
GRADUATE COLLEGE
LIFE AND LABOR IN THE MID-CONTINENT OIL FIELDS, 1859-1945
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
BY
ALBERT RAYMOND PARKER
Norman, Oklahoma
............................................ -.............-19-51........................................... ■ ..
|JWIVBIS!TY OF rwAMQMA
LI Ezi /-v H Y
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UMI Number: DP10108
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PREFACE
Probably no group of industrial workers in America have performed
their services to the nation with so little publicity as the Mid-Continent
oil workers. Just recently historians have begun to discover the signi­
ficance of their industry in America's meteoric rise to its position of
preeminence in the industrial and diplomatic world. As yet, however,
they appear to perceive in it little more than the adventurous viild-
catter, the financier, the company executive and its great gushers. This
is not as it should be. The real vitality of the industry is in its
people—good Anglo-Saxon and Scotch-Irish pioneer people, for the most
part—who have been extremely instrumental in transforming the great
Southwest from a veritable wilderness into a complex industrial society
within the span of a half-century. Technically, their labors began even
before the Civil War and, in addition to being socially significant, have
been attended by romance, tragedies, and triumphs seldom encountered
elsewhere. Surely this is the stuff of history. To the end that people
may take cognizance of this verity, I undertook the writing of this nar­
rative.
I find myself deeply indebted to many people for the unselfish
aid which they have rendered. Throughout the footnotes which accompany
the narrative, I have endeavored to make this indebtedness obvious by
referring to those who have furnished vital m aterial. Upon completing
iii
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the work, however, I find that many of those most deserving of credit
have not been mentioned.
At the University of Oklahoma practically every member of the
history faculty has lent assistance from tim9 to time in one form or
another. Professor Carl Coke Rister, who has recently left to join the
staff at the Texas Technological College, went far beyond the call of
duty in directing the preparation of the first draft. In addition, he
made his own extensive files on the history of the southwestern oil in­
dustry available for my use. Whatever the finished product may possess
in readability, clarity, and historical merit is due largely to the pains­
taking care which Professors A. K. Christian and A. B. Sears have exer­
cised in directing the work of revision. Staff members of other depart­
ments have also contributed much to the work. Dr. V. 1. Monnet, of the
School of Geology, gave valuable counsel on petroleum geology, Professor
Howard I. Benischek, of the College of Sngineering, has endeavored to
save me from error in regard to the technical aspects of drilling and
production; Dr. Paul A. Brinker, of the Department of Economics, read
and criticized some of the chapters dealing with labor relations.
To Miss Opal Carr and Mrs. Lucy Finnerty, librarians at the Uni­
versity of Oklahoma, I am especially grateful for assistance in locating
government documents and technical publications. Miss Winnie Allen ren­
dered a like service while I studied in the University of Texas library
and archives, and Miss Margaret F. Brickett, assistant librarian in the
United States Department of Labor, and Mr. Morris Rieger, of the Indus­
trial Records Branch, National Archives, located much valuable material
iv
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for me in Washington. Finally, to Senator Robert S. Kerr I am much in­
debted for assisting me in securing restricted material which, except
for his help, would not have been available.
This by no means exhausts the list, but lack of space forbids
its extension. If my story has flaws and imperfections, as surely it
must have, be it known that they are due to my own inadequacies and
would have been much more numerous and serious except for the loyal assis­
tance of these people.
Norman, Oklahoma
A. R. P.
June 25, 1951
v
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. SPUDDING IN, 1859-1904.................... 1
II. THE FIRST BONANZA.................................................................... 27
in . THE MID-CONTINENT IN ADOLESCENCE...................................... 48
IV. WESTWARD EXTENSION AND THE CALL TO ARMS, 1916-21 . . 80
V. WAR-TIME HYSTERIA AND UNIONISM.......................................... 116
VI. CRUSADE FOR EMPLOYEE WELFARE, 1921-25............................. 163
VII. NEW BONANZAS AND OLD WAGES................................................... 188
VIII. THE GOLDEN ERA, 1926-31 ................................. 216
IX. THE SCIENTISTS CAME LATE....................................................... 253
X. WASHINGTON PANACEA AND THE REBIRTH OF UNIONISM . . . 281
XI. LOCAL CONTROL AND UNION MILITANCY, 1935-41 .................. 320
XII. FEEDING THE WAR MACHINE...................................................... 354
XIII. THE LABOR FORCE IN WARTIME................................................... 385
.XIV. WAR-TIME WAGES AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS.................... 404
MAP.................................................................................................................. 90
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. 437
vi
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LIFE AND LABOR IN THE MID-CONTINENT OIL FIELDS, 1859-1945
CHAPTER I
SPUDDING IN, 1859-1904
Stretching away to the westward from the muddy bottoms of the
M ississippi, across the rolling prairies and high plains of Kansas, Ok­
lahoma, and Texas to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, is a vast ex­
panse of country long associated in the American mind with the cowboy,
the buffalo hunter, and that peculiar type of frontier agrarianism known
as Populism. Bounded on the south by a thin coastal strip in Louisiana
and Texas, and less distinctly on the north by the plains and bad lands
of Nebraska and South Dakota, this vast region is the domain also of the
Mid-Continent oil workers. The exploits of these people, although not
so well chronicled in history and literature, have been infinitely more
significant than the work of either the cowboy or the buffalo hunter,
for it is they, more than any other, who have supplied America with its
industrial life blood—oil.
Even before the buffalo hunter arrived, and while the cowboy was
yet a neophyte, a few of these oil people were at work laboriously and
unobtrusively Introducing to the more easterly districts of the region
the tools and techniques which would transform it ultimately into the
great Mid-Continent oil field. Their efforts were not rewarded immedi-
1
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