is small. But that point is of little importance, inasmuch as there is no reason to believe that Mexican oil would not still be obtainable, and in exactly the same manner as before—by the simple process of purchase.
Supposing that Mexican oil should pass into the hands of the Mexican Government, or of Mexicans, what would they do with it except to sell it to whomever was willing to pay the price?
Nor is there any reason to believe that the price would be higher. Conversely, there is no reason to believe that if the Government of the United States should tomorrow grab all of Mexico for Doheny and his friends, the price of oil would fall to the American consumer by so much as a fraction of one per cent.
Quite to the contrary, it is more likely that if some of the oil resources of the earth were pried loose from Doheny, Standard Oil, and their foreign partners, the Rothschilds and the Cowdrays—by the Mexican Government or any other factor—the monopoly of this commodity might not be so nearly complete, there might be a little real competition, and the American users of the flivver and the limousine might have cheaper oil and gasoline.
There is no need for alarm. So long as petroleum is produced in so many quarters of the world, the American people may rest assured that it will be available for American use, and on terms no less favorable if the sources of supply are owned by foreigners than if they are owned by Americans.
The tactics of the gentlemen who suggest the use of the public armed forces to "hold" their claims in foreign lands sufficiently refute any pretense that they may make of concern for the American consumer. For it happens that these gentlemen, instead of directing their energies to increasing the supply for the benefit of the nation, have frequently sought to limit it for the sole purpose of increasing their own profits at the expense of the rest of us. The very interests which are wont to advocate grabbing the natural resources of other countries "for the use of American industry" are the same which favor, and put through, protective tariffs and "anti-dumping laws," forcing the American consumer to pay them higher prices than he would have to pay were free importations permitted from abroad.
The aim of this fallacious propaganda is to delude the Amer-
26
