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100 ahead of its rivals in its Tampico terminals as in its oil land acquisitions. In tanks, storage, river-frontage shops, machinery, and loading equipment it holds the ground and leadership. I figure it has more oil in pipe lines and storage than it sold last year, and perhaps as much as its 1916 production twelve million four hundred thousand barrels.

The great pioneer work of acquisition, production, construction, finance, and organization has been accomplished in seventeen years, and the patient owner should reap handsome rewards in the next seventeen years.

But there is one caution I may give him, and that is not to be alarmed concerning reports from Mexico and Tampico, whence there is very little reliable news in the despatches of the day. Indeed, the two worst informed countries concerning each other's affairs are those countries lying either side of the Rio Grande.

The American hears little that is good or true concerning Mexico, and the Mexican hears little that is good or true concerning the United States. The governments of both countries seem equally interested in suppressing the real