The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 61, July 1957 - April, 1958 Page: 322
591 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Humble prevailed, taking $17,000,000 for the half sold to
Standard (which incidentally ordered its Houston attorney to
purchase five shares of Humble on the open market so as to give
the Jersey group five shares more than half, an abortive move as
it turned out). It was, in the words of the authors, "a near-perfect
bargain." Standard obtained its crude production-nowadays
Humble is the largest domestic producer in the United States;
and Humble insisted on, and got-and kept-autonomy in its
operations, for Standard both believed in decentralized manage-
ment and realized it could not match Humble's experienced pro-
ducing executives.
The development of oil-finding as a science is also given in
considerable degree a Humble story. As late as 1919 petroleum
geology was a relatively new field, with most producers paying
almost no attention to subsurface geology. In the new meth-
odology Humble led the way.
In urging conservation practices Humble, especially W. S.
Farish, again led the movement, this time sharing its lead with
James A. Veasey and the Carter Oil Company in Oklahoma. By
1927, however, neither conservation nor geophysics was accepted
widely in principle, while in practice, the surface was hardly
scratched. Farish himself, who through Humble has instituted the
first voluntary program of proration in the United States, was in
some disfavor with the 26 Broadway executives for working closely
with Secretary of Commerce Hoover and the American Petroleum
Institute to obtain conservation laws and for saying out loud that
"the only solution to the trouble the oil industry is in is govern-
ment control and help." Adolescence had not quite terminated
for the oil industry, but men like Farish were beginning to per-
ceive that orderliness and maturity were desirable and attainable
goals. They were incidentally planting the seeds for a third
volume in the story of Standard.
Needless to say, when Gibb and Knowlton get through with
their 630 pages of straight text, not to mention another 125 pages
of notes, and so on, not much is left unsaid. The authors man-
aged to keep a reasonably alert eye for Standard misdeeds, which
are of no concern here; and they have avoided the allure-and
pitfalls-of the more galvanic and glamorous productive aspects
of petroleum. This is an absolutely solid work, as far removed322
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 61, July 1957 - April, 1958, periodical, 1958; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101164/m1/380/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.