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CHAPTER IV


Germany's ally at Tampico[1]


AMERICAN warships are stationed at Tampico to-day to watch Germany's ally in Mexico. From time to time one of them lifts anchor, steams out of the Pánuco River and patrols the Gulf Coast. Suspicious ships are examined, wireless messages are picked up, and night and day the trained eyes of the lookouts search the seas for hostile periscopes. When one returns the other slips away under cover of darkness to a secret destination.

From the Government wireless tower at Arlington, Virginia, the Navy Department directs the movement of these ships as it plans Uncle Sam's moves on the great international oceanic chessboard. Eternal vigilance is the price of peace at Tampico, the greatest oil port in the world. From the jungle sixty miles away flows the endless stream that propels and lubricates the Allied military machine; for the weapons with which the United States, England and France are fighting

  1. A friend in Mexico City wrote the author that the article in the Saturday Evening Post which is a part of this chapter was not permitted to be circulated in the Republic.

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