Seven Reasons

President Coolidge wrote a letter to the public and addressed it to four members of his Cabinet--Secretaries Weeks, Wilbur, Work and Hoover. The substance of his announcement:

1) WHEREAS, the present method of producing oil is wasteful because it is impossible to conserve oil in the ground if a neighbor desires to take oil from his property;

2) WHEREAS, oil is a prime military necessity in so many ways that it may determine the supremacy of nations;

3) WHEREAS, a shortage of fuel and lubricating oil, let alone gasoline, would be disastrous to industry;

4) WHEREAS, we have rather an oversupply than an undersupply of oil from our 300,000 wells, and, whereas, oversupply produces cheapness and cheapness, waste;

5) WHEREAS, oil, of which the supply is limited, is rapidly taking the place of coal, and, whereas, coal, the supply of which is comparatively unlimited, cannot take the place of oil;

6) WHEREAS, the Government is one of the largest holders of undeveloped oil reserves;

7) WHEREAS, the oil industry might be trusted to work out its own problems according to the laws of supply and demand but that the welfare of the industry is so closely linked with industrial prosperity and national safety--

The President, therefore, deems it proper to appoint a Federal Oil Conservation Board consisting of the Secretaries of War, Navy, Interior and Commerce to consider all phases of the problem with representatives of the industry and with the assistance of the commission appointed last March to investigate the limited problem of the future oil supply of the Navy.

Messrs. Weeks, Wilbur, Work, Hoover knitted their brows and thought: "Now the public knows what we're supposed to do."