The Mexican Problem (1917)/The Financial Benefits Of Disorder
CHAPTER VI
THE FINANCIAL BENEFITS OF DISORDER
Washington notes, words, sentiments, and actions have produced quicker results in Mexico than in any other country in the world.
From various parts of Mexico, between the border and Mexico City, comes word that since Congress voted billions of money for war expenditure and began plans for an enormous army, all the "generals" in Mexico have suddenly become very polite to foreigners, especially Americans. All the threatenings from German sources in Mexico likewise suddenly become non-explosive.
There is one thing that talks in international relationships and that is the loading up of the guns. It does not make any difference in which direction the guns are aimed. Uncle Sam has not a thought about Mexico at the present time; his guns are all aimed for Germany. But for the first time all the Mexican generals and would-be generals know that Uncle Sam has got a gun, has started to load it, and is putting so many millions of men behind it that nobody can now say with safety how much of a squint he may take around the horizon when he gets really fighting mad in the interest of universal peace.
Meanwhile, it may be well to point out for financial interests the benefit to oil producers in that country of the American policy to date of non-intervention and of general disorder.
The great oil gushers of Mexico are near the coast. They are thus of world-wide value, but there is no storage capacity in the world that might not be quickly exhausted by a full run from one of these gushers. The Mexican Petroleum Company has storage for nine million barrels, and it is full. The Cowdray interests likewise are full up to their six million storage capacity.
NATURE'S RESERVES
Nature is wonderful in concealing her natural resources until the world is prepared for them. Then it is discovered that she has all the while been hanging out invitation signs for man to dig and produce.
To-day, however, the world can see and scientifically figure the possibilities of both coal and oil exhaustion for all known sources of supply on this planet. When petroleum was first discovered in Pennsylvania the rivers carried it to waste. Rockefeller laid the foundation for the biggest fortune in the world by borrowing money to store oil when oil had no value but was running to waste.
But Rockefeller, seeking a new stomach to bear up the burden of his hundreds of millions, must trust to "experts" and to "expert" reports on Texas and Mexican oils. The result was that Texas oils were officially condemned by the Standard Oil people upon expert testimony and the oil gushing from Spindle Top sold below three cents a barrel, with few people having the Rockefeller courage to buy storage capacity for it.
The popular superstition is that the Standard Oil interest has sought to grab the oil wealth of Mexico. If any one, however, had outside keys to 26 Broadway, he could find therein three successive "expert" reports condemning the early samples of Mexican oil as fakes.
The Standard Oil chemists reported that the oil sent from Mexico could not be nature's compound; somebody was attempting to impose upon them by injecting gasolene and sulphur into worthless bitumen or asphalt, but they had not been chemically combined and the fraud was easily detectable.
Mexican asphaltum had no value and Mexican oils as first discovered and analyzed were largely Mexican pitch or asphalt and were officially declared good for neither kerosene nor gasolene. It was with difficulty that the railways of Mexico could be induced to change their engines from high-priced coal to cheap Mexican fuel oil.
THE SHUT-IN OIL WELLS
When farther south the gasolene values of Mexican oils were proven, the compound was shown to be just another new one of Mother Earth with the gasolene and sulphur more detached. When the day of the oil gusher arrived, one can only conjecture the result to the world had there been tranquillity in Mexico and capital and shipping easily available. It might have been the story over again of "ten thousand tons of gold" to be dumped into the ocean to save the investment base of the world.
To-day there is a proven daily capacity of one-million barrels of oil between Tampico and Mexico City and there are neither pipe lines nor ships to take away one-sixth of it. A year's drilling would multiply the present drilled capacity, and with the high porosity in the "reefs" every oil land owner would have to quickly drill his boundaries for self-protection.;
A few gushers might be in position to sell their oil to a pipe line at three cents a barrel and make a million a year. It would be a wicked world-waste. The Tampico oil fields could equal the total production of the United States on about forty-eight hours' notice of facilities for storing the product.
But Mexico, politically unsettled, with only two pipe lines in operation, has her oil wealth conserved, and Lord Cowdray can report to the English shareholders of the Mexican Eagle Company that earnings are ten million dollars per annum Mexican gold, or five million dollars per annum United States gold; and the Mexican Petroleum Company can report to its American shareholders net earnings of about the same amount— six millions for the $39,000,000 common stock the past year.
THE SHUT-IN EARS
Always hoping for the best, I can see possible benefits arising from the "shut-in" policy for Mexico— the shutting-in of its oil wells and the shutting-in of the ears of President Wilson to all appeals for help. The oil forces of nature have been conserved not only in the interest of world development but of Mexico's slower and more substantial progress.
President Wilson has so turned his back upon the Mexican situation that his most intimate political advisers will not mention the subject of Mexico in his presence. His mind appears to them absolutely closed on the subject. There is no "watchful waiting" policy about it. That was Mr. Bryan's phrase and policy.
When one looks at the flaming war fires in Europe, he may see a reason or a Providence in the Wilson attitude toward Mexico.
Mr. Wilson may have been better informed concerning the seriousness of the European situation than the public has been led to believe. The people who have had his confidence on this subject have not had his confidence as respects Mexico, and it may be well doubted if anybody knows exactly Mr. Wilson's real position toward our suffering neighbor to the South.
There is just one American financial interest with millions in Mexico that is in thorough agreement with the Wilson policy, which is that of news suppression and the quieting of all agitation concerning Mexican affairs. But I do not think it judicious at the present time to further enter that phase of the subject.
The United States can have no well-defined policy toward Mexico the public announcement of which would be helpful at the present time. It should be sufficient for one to reflect that the United States has girded on its armor in an Anglo-French alliance, the end of which cannot be in sight while either two of these three great nations remain alive.