In fact, there is no reason to doubt that virtually all of the oil decrees of Carranza, all the rulings of his ministers, all the regulations which have been enforced with such insistence on petty details have been, first, appeals to sentimentalism abroad and, second, childish expedients to force recognition by the foreigners of some sort--any sort--of superiority in the Mexicans. In the last, so well set forth in the State Department message quoted just above, lies the basic cause of the failure of the companies to reach an agreement with the Mexican government. Every willingness to discuss a point, every slackening of their demands, has been accepted, not as an approach to a solution, but as a weak concession to Mexican “national pride” and personal dignity. There are two remaining reasons why the oil question remains unsettled. They are extremely practical,--loot and incompetence. Of the former, George Agnew Chamberlain, the novelist, recently American Consul General in Mexico City, has written in his book, “Is Mexico Worth Saving?” that: “Today it is taken as a matter of course that ninety per cent of all Mexican officials in positions of trust are openly corrupt and will inevitably continue so until controlled by some greater power than any single faction of their peers.... The graft of Mexico is outright loot; its effect is to open simultaneously all the arteries of the body politic and to pour the entire life blood of the nation into the gullets of the group in power.” The oil companies are the ripest prey for loot in all Mexico. Their individual employees pay graft of certain kinds--of that I have no doubt, although there is vigorous and official denial. The companies themselves, however, pay a tribute, through the channels of astonishing taxation and contributions to public works, which is no less than the buying of the privilege of doing business. Another phase appears in the gossip which is general that one of the English companies materially aided the Obregon revolution--certainly every moneyed interest in Mexico had ample opportunity to do so. The American companies were, after Obregon’s occupation of Mexico City, “shaken down” for about $1,000,000 which was credited against taxes--and the taxes afterwards proportionately increased! As a whole, the companies have resisted the temptation to ease their way along the broader paths of high government by the voluntary use of money--they have generally confined their expenses to the ample totals of taxes and assessments. It is for this reason that one of the most serious phases of the Mexican congressional discussion of petroleum legislation is that practically every member of the Mexican congress expects “his,” and when it is not forthcoming, will see to it that nothing favorable to the foreign companies finds its way to the statute books.