news. All the foreigners interested in Mexico and its development are afraid to speak concerning their properties or their operations for fear of misconstruction either at Washington or Mexico City, and harmless, inane, or weakly stupid news reports are allowed to pass censorship. We have all sorts of "frightful" German reports; now it is Villa moving on Tampico and, as I write, comes the report that shipping is tied up at Tampico by a strike of oil handlers. One would think, to read the press reports, that there was a similarity between the work of longshoremen loading ships in New York harbor and thousands of Mexicans loading oil ships at Tampico.
I stood at the loading-station on the east side of the Panuco River at the Mexican Petroleum Company's terminal opposite Tampico and witnessed one of the big oil ships slowly draw up to the wharf for its load of oil. There must have been a very large party on the pier, for it consisted of myself, two Mexicans, and Dr. W. W. Hills and his wife. The doctor was explaining to me his remedies for resuscitating the men at Cerro Azul when in the fumes of that gusher the American engineers were working day and night to shut in the torrent of oil, —how as fast
