stomach it and they locked it up again; it is for sale again-for lease, rather, not sale. They will take the new victim uptown and show him colored motion pictures and tell him about the free enterprise system.

They failed there. These people should not be allowed to charge the closed station to you and me. Otherwise, you should allow landlords who have a cleaning shop that folds up to charge that to the cleaning shop that is still open and put it on the charge of cleaning your suit. It is ridiculous.

I know of a Shell station with one and a quarter cents per gallon rental cost until Shell took it over. They made a mistake and they had run up to 10 cents a gallon for rental. I offered to take it off their hands and they refused, said, "No, we want to keep our shield up in this area."

What they are doing it for is advertising. They are charging advertising at an unreasonable amount. They are not doing the customer a favor by keeping the place open when there are four others on the corner, or three or two.

So the sad part of it is that the oil companies are in all this control and all this effort to fix prices and they never wanted to fix prices in writing or verbally, only by position; just have the company representative drop in and tell the dealer, the price goes up tomorrow.

Mr. ODELL. Did you have a question? Did you want to interrupt

me?

Chairman DIXON. No, go ahead, sir. You have a few more minutes, and I am going to call time-30 minutes. Can you sum up a little faster?

Mr. ODELL. No, this is a 30-hour presentation reduced to 30 minutes.

I will sum up in this. If you could do a couple of things of the many things that could be done, that will automatically push the oil companies out of the marketing business, then you will bring down the price of gasoline to the consumer. The consumer is the person of most importance. Next would be the retailer. He is the one who most affects the consumer.

The credit-card operation, the illegal charging of poor and bad locations to the consumer, wasted locations, the strangulation of business in general-bringing you a truckload of documents telling you some of the horrible things that have been done, telling you about the millions and millions plowed into political campaigns by oil companies. Because we know of one tragic accident, an oil company president had a tenth of a million dollars slither out of his briefcase on his way to meet a politician. There are many more who got through.

Thank you.

Chairman DIXON. Thank you, sir.

The next witness was to represent the Sunland Refining Corp. I have a letter addressed to the Commission, from Mr. G. A. Olsen, its president, stating that due to unforeseen developments he wasn't going to be able to attend the hearing today, and he requested that his statement be made a part of the record, and I so order that it be made a part of the record.

(The document referred to was marked "Olsen Exhibit 1" for identification and appears in the appendix at p. 763.)

The last witness today, Mr. Gil Meyer.

Mr. BURGER. I am Mr. Burger, president of the National Federation of Independent Business. I want to introduce Mr. Gil Meyer.

TESTIMONY OF GIL MEYER, GIL'S TOWING SERVICE, WOOD VILLAGE, TROUTDALE, OREG.

Mr. MEYER. Gentlemen, the first thing I want to speak about is the illegal use of subsidy plans to discriminate against me.

Chairman DIXON. You are Mr. Gil Meyer, of Gil's Towing Service. Where are you located?

Mr. MEYER. The city of Wood Village, Troutdale, Oreg.

Chairman DIXON. Proceed.

Mr. MEYER. When they first started their gas wars, they had a subsidy system, and the fellow that owned the station, well, they got a cent less subsidy than what the company stations got. And first they tried to tell, well, the company fellows got company stations, they are paying a little more rent, and they need the extra help, that is why they give it to them. And the last time we got an answer, well, they had a little bit of commonsense to it-the reason they give a cent less subsidy, so we couldn't start gas wars.

Well, I hadn't been starting any gas wars. But that was their definition for it.

So there was a cent a gallon taken away from me nice and easycutting rent to owner-operator stations without giving me a chance. to negotiate.

They come right out and told me that they were cutting rent back to one cent a gallon-we had been getting 2 cents a gallon from the company. How that happened was first I was getting a cent, when I first

Chairman DIXON. Mr. Meyer, excuse me for interrupting you. So the record is good and clear-you operate a station for whom? Mr. MEYER. For myself. I own and operate my station, and I handle Mobil gas.

Chairman DIXON. You own it yourself?

Mr. MEYER. I own it myself; I built it and I operate it. I leased it out once for 8 months.

Chairman DIXON. Whose gasoline do you sell?

Mr. MEYER. I am selling Mobil gas.

Chiarman DIXON. Under what kinds of a contractual relationship? Mr. MEYER. Well, I got a contract here, if that is what you mean. Chairman DIXON. That is right.

Mr. MEYER. I have got a contract that I signed with them years ago, that goes from one year to the other. I can cancel out in 30 days.

Chairman DIXON. And they can cancel you in 30 days?

Mr. MEYER. They have to cancel me on the day it expires. If they did, I would have an awful time, because I have tried to switch to other oil companies, and I am boycotted. But I will get to that later.

Chairman DIXON. Let's get to it right now, so we know what kind of an operator you are. I think we could understand you a little better if we could get you placed.

Did you lease your station to Mobil, and then re-lease it back?

Mr. MEYER. No, I just took a lease to handle their products. Chairman DIXON. All right. Whose equipment is in your station? Mr. MEYER. All mine.

Chairman DIXON. Everything belongs to you?

Mr. MEYER. Everything is mine.

Chairman DIXON. All right, go ahead.

Mr. MEYER. I didn't let them own a damned thing.
Chairman DIXON. All right, go ahead.

Mr. MEYER. Now, the companies used to come around and try to get our business. I was getting a cent a gallon. The company come along. They wanted to give me a better deal-a cent and a half. Well, Mobil followed along, so I stayed with them on a cent and a half.

Years gone along, the taxes were getting higher, insurance was getting higher. So I started looking around. I figured I should have 2 cents a gallon to pay the taxes and upkeep and a little bit of money for my investment.

And I planned on talking to Carter Oil Co., which is Esso. Shell Oil Co. come along and offered me 2 cents. So I notified Mobil that I was going to leave them; I was going to Shell.

So they said, "Well, if you put in bigger tanks, get bigger storage, we will give you 2 cents."

And so I went ahead. They paid half of the cost of the storage tanks, and I paid half. And from that day on, I got 2 cents a gallon. Well, the gas wars was getting along pretty good. They had to find some way to control the prices, because they got this area pricing, and everybody was buying at pretty well the same price and, boy, that was bad. We had a chance to really compete with their company stations and give them a bad time.

So they all got together, all the oil companies got together-this is what the sales representative said that they all got together and agreed to cut the price to owner-operator stations that was getting 2 cents a gallon, cut them back to 1 cent a gallon, and the ones getting a cent and a half a gallon, they cut them back to 8-tenths of a cent a gallon. And I got that from my representative, and I got it from another representative who come through and seen me not too long ago, told me that same story.

If that ain't price fixing, I don't know what is.

I know it because if it had just been me, I wouldn't have thought so much of it. But all the oil companies they all got together and did it. And I have talked to different operators. All the operators was cut in half.

And then the fellow that I used to buy gas from, the bulk station that Mobil bought out, to get rid of somebody standing in the way, he has got a station up at Orient. He leases it to them for a cent and a half a gallon. He doesn't operate it. He still is getting his cent and a half a gallon when the cut come.

you.

So there if proof-if you own and operate, they will cut But if you don't, you are not in their run of competition against their stations-well, you can have it then, because you cannot run competition against them.

Could I have a glass of water, please?

Chairman DIXON. Yes, sir.

Mr. MEYER. I am a little nervous.

Chairman DIXON. Well, just calm down.

Mr. MEYER. I am trying to.

So when they went to cut mine back a cent a gallon, like they did everybody else's, I raised cain and I wrote to Berger. Berger, he did enough digging around through different places here in Washington, D.C., and I kept my own cent a gallon.

I kept it, and-I don't know if he suggested I should try some other company. Or somebody suggested it. So I tried the Standard Oil Co. And, well, when they finally come out-I got a story about thatbut I will pass that up for a while. But when they did finally come out, I told them I was getting 2 cents a gallon. Wham-I was cut back to 1 cent right then and there. And I ain't even getting 1 cent to tell the truth about it, by looks of the invoices.

And my prices-they are higher than any of the company-controlled staions, which I have invoices here to prove it. And I have a letter here that I wrote on December 10, 1961. I happen to have the invoices on that same day from my station and a company-leased station.

Now, you notice on the top invoice, that is my invoice. I am paying 26.15. Down below, David Allen Cayton is paying 28.9, but getting 71⁄2 cents discount; 71⁄2 cents discount brings it down to 21.4 he is paying. Chairman DIXON. Is he in the same city with you?

Mr. MEYER. He is two and a half miles from me. And at the time that that is that is 44 cents less than what I am paying for it. Here is the letter I wrote-well, this ain't the one.

Chairman DIXON. We will make this part of the record. Go ahead. (The document referred to was marked "Meyer Exhibit 1" for identification, and appears in the appendix at p. 764.)

Mr. MEYER (reading):

MOBIL OIL CO.:

DECEMBER 10, 1961.

I would like to know why I have to pay 26.15 cents per gallon for my regular gasoline. When your company-built stations at Gresham on Cleveland and Powell, not over two and a half miles from my station, sell gas for 25.9 cents a gallon, one-fourth cent less than I have to pay for it at tank wagon price. The Richfield station at Troutdale are posting at 25.9 also.

That is not in Gresham. That is at Troutdale. Gresham is on one side and Troutdale is over on the other side.

Your salesman or representative told my wife over the phone that the reason for the 25.9 at Gresham was to force the Carter station up in price. It looks as if you are trying to swing some of my trade that way-as I do not believe in overcharging the public for gas, and I am posting my prices at a fair margin of profit if I am allowed to sell enough volume that my station can handle and yet give good service to the customer. It looks as if the owner-operator stations are fighting a losing battle, as if we do not charge the price we are expected to charge, we have to pay higher tank wagon prices. If we charge a price we are supposed to charge, we cannot survive as the oil companies are building so many fancy stations that there is not enough business left for the older stations to make a living, because the companies can always find enough suckers, that is new operators, to operate their stations, even if they only last a few months

some of them go broke, because they do not have the ability, do not know how to pump gas, they are a hindrance to the customer, they will put oil in his brake fluid, or they will do a brake job, and he goes out on the highway and are a danger to the public-I do not know what it is all about. But yet they will put them in there, because they cannot get good operators, because the good operators know better. So they are getting rid of what operators they have got because they are forcing them out.

If that keeps up long enough, the owner-operator stations are bound to go broke. And that is about all.

This is the one letter to Sam Sayther. He had been transferred from the gasoline department to the oil or stove oil department, or furnace oil department. He is still with them. But as I kind of nailed a few of them down, it seems like they transfer them somewhere else. The salesmen seem a little scared to come into my station. I just ask them several questions-I want to know why.

Well, they cannot answer them. If they do answer them, they are are in trouble.

Changing price areas-pricing areas-so that I am always in a higher priced zone.

Well, I have a map here of some of that pricing area.

This is some of the first notes I took. I have got them kind of scattered through a few different books here.

I did not think I would be quite so shaky. I should have had them typed up.

Well, here is September 20, 1962, Calhoun called, let me know gas prices were down, and said it dropped this morning, but received invoice in mail for gas, September 19, prices were down on that invoice. Some of these

Chairman DIXON. Mr. Meyer, at this time were you charging or posting your price at less than the price that other Mobil stations were charging in your area?

Mr. MEYER. At times I was, and at times I wasn't. Gresham usually was always down below me. Just like this one letter I wrote to them here, that Gresham was lower. That is where it started. The gas war started over at Gresham. And I was supposed to set there and charge more. And how I got into it was Union Oil used to have a station right next to me that is before they started the gas war-they could not seem to keep operators in there. So they switched over to Golden Eagle. That is Union Oil, but it just gives them an excuse to cut prices. It is a cutrate station, they have a right to sell gas cheaper than I am, although it is Union Oil gas.

So that fellow, he sat down there, when they had the gas war going over in Gresham, with a price sign lower than I was, and a couple of miles from me they had a Standard station giving S & H green Stamps. But I had posted the same price sign as Standard's station that was giving S & H green stamps. And this other fellow, he decided he was going to put a sign down there a cent less than I was. What am I supposed to do-just set there?

Well, it was hurting my business. Zimmerman was giving a cent a gallon off, S & H green stamps, the same thing as 1 cent a gallon off. And that is what I argued with the salesman all the way down the line, why couldn't I put a sign up a cent below the S & H green stamps, and he said, "You do, and we will take your subsidy away from you.' Well, I finally did. I dropped to meet the station next to me. Well, he dropped. I went down. It wound up-well, at that time I was still getting my 2 cents a gallon. But I went down to tank wagon price. I hung there for a month. But it surprised me. I and the wife was the only two running the station. We did not have any help at that time. We sold right close to 40,000 gallons of gas. Well, we had not made a dime. But I got a check back for pretty near $800. Well, that sounded pretty good to me. Here I was making only 2

55-013-66-vol. 1 -6