Page:The Mexican Problem (1917).djvu/70

28 Suspicions concerning the Standard Oil Company in Mexico have been prevalent on both sides of the Atlantic.

Many times the representatives of American oil interests at Mexico have been interrogated at Washington as to their relations with the Standard Oil Company, and each time the response has been emphatic that the Standard Oil Company was neither openly nor secretly promoting the oil development in Mexico or behind any important independent producing companies.

The fact is that the Standard Oil Company has aimed at a monopoly of markets, a monopoly of transportation, and a monopoly of refining. It has always avoided ownership in the producing field. The late H. H. Rogers used to declare that the Standard Oil Company wanted no more than an eighty-five per cent monopoly in oil; but that its fifteen per cent interest in the production was more than it desired in that line. The Standard Oil Company has prospected or mined for oil only where others could not be induced to take the risk. The hazard of mining the Standard Oil Company has always endeavored to avoid.