forty thousand dollars a month protection money from the oil companies. Carranza gets one hundred thousand dollars in taxes every month from the Standard Oil Company; two hundred thousand dollars a month from the Huasteca Petroleum Company, and more from the Lord Cowdray interests. The oil producers maintain Pelaez, his soldiers and his government, and they contribute more than any other foreign interest toward the revenues of the present Mexican Government.
But—and this is where the story of King Pelaez begins—the trouble at Tampico has not been in the territory controlled by the bandit, but within the city limits, dominated by the central government. There have been no strikes in the oil districts where this black, crude product gushes from the earth at the rate of nearly a million barrels a day. No American lives have been lost; no American or European property has been destroyed.
In Tampico itself strikes have occurred and may develop at any time. No one can tell what a combination of I.W.W. agitators and German intriguers may do. But the curious thing is that the oil companies are satisfied.
"We believe," remarked one of the managers, "and the United States believes, that as long as we are at war with Germany it is best to leave well enough alone. We are getting oil out of Mexico. That is our part. That is what the United States and Great Britain want. That is what the companies want."
