The New Dictator

Oilmen, already harried by a shortage of tankers, had another blow last week. Their favorite enemy, Harold L. Ickes, already Federal Oil Administrator, became Petroleum Coordinator for National Defense. The man they had damned as "imbued with an inordinate ambition ... to dictate the course of the industry" got the power to do just that. Cried a Tulsa pessimist: "Ickes is captain of our souls. My day is absolutely ruined!"

But oilmen were glad at least that they had a boss with authority. Reason: the growing transportation problem. Ickes himself, in a characteristic grab at the headlines, had forecast "Gasless Sundays, Dim 'White Ways' " last week, preventable only "if we had means of transportation, or if facilities were developed."

That means 1) most efficient use of the U.S. tanker fleet, which is being 14% diverted to Britain (TIME, May 26), 2) more pipelines. Last week the House got an Administration bill to clear the way for a new line from Gulf wells to northeastern States. Its condemnation provisions were aimed at railroaders who have blocked lines in the South (TIME, May 26).

Another barrier to new pipeline construction has been a Federal anti-trust suit against 22 major oil companies. Attorney General Jackson got behind fellow New Dealer Ickes at once, announced that anti-trust suits would not be allowed to interfere with any pipeline program the new dictator might devise.

The Ickes-tankers equation raised more interesting possibilities of action. One was over oil sales to Japan, much increased in recent months. Up to now, the State Department has appeased Japan by approving these sales, ignored agitation against such aid to an Axis partner. Ickes has no such tenderness for the Japanese. Thus, for the first time, the power to diminish Japan's oil supply lies in the hands of a man who dislikes her. Backed by President Roosevelt's growing reluctance to let war materials cross the Pacific, Ickes may begin his dictatorship by pulling the hoses out of Japanese tankers.

Ickes' deputy in charge of Petroleum Coordinating, the man for oilmen to see, will be Texan Alvin J. ("Senator") Wirtz, who is no Donald Duck and should help make up for Ickes' personal unpopularity in the oil fields. Last week the deputy-to-be was in Texas, running White-House-backed Lyndon Baines Johnson's campaign (against Pass-the-Biscuits-Pappy O'Daniel, Martin Dies, et al.) for the Senate.

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