TO THE EDITOR:

The price of crude oil recently exceeded $108 a barrel. That seems high compared to the peak of the price of crude oil 25 years ago. In conjunction with the war between Iran and Iraq, a barrel of oil sold for $62-$68 a barrel. Now it has increased $40 over the 1981-82 price.

But there was a time in the U.S.A. when oil sold, in terms of the value of a dollar, for substantially more. One dollar in 1860 had the equivalent value of $20 in 2006. Not long after Edwin Drake discovered oil in 1859 near Titusville, Pa., speculators paid $20 a barrel for oil. In to...

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