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104 various oil-producing states of our own country. These Mexican owners of petroleum lands have held meetings at Tampico, and have submitted vigorous protests to the Carranza government against Article 27 of the new constitution, which is being used by the Carranza administration in an attempt to rob them of the contents of their lands which the law has heretofore assured to them; but, as the oil industry is to-day one of the few in that country that are paying and as the Carranza government is constantly in need of money for the use of its dissipated army officers, efforts to consummate the scheme of robbery under the so-called new constitution have by no means been abandoned.

The millions of dollars which American oil producers risked in their enterprises were of enormous economic value to the country. The oil from their wells, and from those developed later by other foreign interests, furnished fuel for the Mexican railroads, a considerable mileage of which was controlled by the government, cheaper and of a better quality than they had ever been able to obtain before. It furnished fuel which resulted in the establishment of gas plants in Mexico City and elsewhere — an economic development of peculiar value, on account of the moderate climate in which gas furnishes the cheapest and best possible fuel for household purposes. These plants have all been ruined by the revolution. The