The Mexican Problem (1917)

by Clarence Walker Barron

 

 

A PETROLEUM CAMP IN MEXICO

 

THE MEXICAN

PROBLEM

 

By

CLARENCE W. BARRON

 

WITH INTRODUCTION BY
TALCOTT WILLIAMS, LL.D.

 

 

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1917

 

 

CONTENTS

 

I.	The Contrast	1
II.	American Interests No Base Of Disorder	15
III.	Business And Not Politics Can Redeem Mexico	27
IV.	Who Shall Help The Engulfed People?	39
V.	Why No Aid For Mexico?	52
VI.	The Financial Benefits Of Disorder	60
VII.	The Law Of Compensation	67
VIII.	The "Effectivos" In Mexico	77
IX.	Oil Expansion	86
X.	Pioneer Work Finished	94
XI.	Why The Pan-American Company Controls Mexican Petroleum	104
XII.	Doheny Lord Of Oil	120

 

ILLUSTRATIONS

A Petroleum Camp in Mexico	Frontispiece
Clearing Jungle for Petroleum Camp	20
Christmas Day at Ebano. Unveiling Statue of Juarez	24
The Gusher Potrero 4, before being capped.	36
Storage Reservoir at Potrero — 2,500,000 Barrels	48
Some of the 55,000-Barrel Storage Tanks, Mexican Eagel Oil Company	48
View of Tuxpan, showing Storage Tanks and Steamer Loading Cargo of Mexican Oil from Deep-Sea Loading Lines	58
A Barbecue with Americans waiting on the Mexicans	70
Two British Destroyers — One Running on Coal, the other on Oil	88
Peon Houses before Oil Development began	96
Residences of Peons	100
Near Tres Hermanos	124
Huasteca Petroleum Company supplying Natives with Food brought by its Tankers from the United States, during War Times in Mexico.	132
Map showing Lands of Mexican Petroleum Company	At end of book

 

"Á AMERICA LOCA"

By SANTOS CHOCANO

Peruvian, and Colonel in the Constitutionalist Army in Mexico
(Late 1913)

Peoples tumultuous. Feverish countrysides.
Latin America, sunstruck and mad.

 

(Prehistoric)

Empires decked in the pomp of the warrior, blinded with luxury, deafened by sound,

Stolid priests hacking out entrails and viscera—wild sacrifices to Gods of the mound.

Martinet masters who drag out the hours in low sensualities foreign to Love,

Fatuous peoples all, like to their posts: heartless, whom only their fancies can move.

(1520)

Then arrives Spain with her cross and her sorrows, after her centuries seven of strife.

Phantomlike multitudes (fair gods on horses) lay waste the Andes and strip them of life.

Pizarro and Almagro cross their keen rapiers in fratricide strife that runs on till to-day—

Hernan Cortéz in the arms of Marina, mingles two bloods that are marked for decay.

Offspring, a Gryphon; futile, insane—

Eagle of feather, and lion of mane.

Moorish depression comes out of the desert, clinging all time to the strange Spanish horse.

Wailing, its sadness finds echo in Andes, mountains now silent and dumb with remorse.

Back of the priest and his furious ritual, Inquisitorial phantoms arise.

Then, amid suffering, hunger and misery, flourishes Caste, built on terror and lies.

(1580)

Fray de las Casas by mad liberation loads on America burdens more great;

Blood of the African now is commingled with that of the Gryphon, the curse of the State.

This new decadence gives flowers anæmic, rich in their color, but odorless, stale;

Women inspiring but sensual agonies; bards who in all but their fantasies fail.

 

(1520-1810)

Cycles of history reading like fairy tales; viceregal brilliance of color and tone.

O the adventures of silvery eventides! Silken rope-ladder and Moorish balcon—

Falsest of vows given—furtivest coquetry—heads nodding "Yes" to the tryst of the slayer—

Swords sacrilegiously hiss from their sheathes in the very Cathedral and break off the prayer.

All the vile elegance, then of Don Juan—

Piety, decency, sanity, gone.

 

(1810)

Prophets, self-styled, raise the grito of Liberty. Over one century, lost are their cries.

(1913)

Comes, now, this meaningless, bloodletting orgy, from which our Lord God turns his pitying eyes.

Peoples tumultuous. Lands of hot fever.

Latin America, sunstruck and mad.