The ravaging of the oil wells is full of picturesque and terrible incident, like the railways. The most striking and costly was the outrage perpetuated by General Candido Aguilar, son-in-law of Carranza. On December 13, 1913, Aguilar demanded, from the Eagle Oil Company (British) tribute to the sum of $10,000. This was not forthcoming so Aguilar proceeded to carry out his threat of “shutting in” the great “El Portrero” well, one of the most famous in Mexican oil history, which had been a steady producer, for two and a half years, of 30,000 barrels per day. He succeeded in capping it, and before the casing was finally blown out, the oil had broken through the ground in dozens of places, including the bed of a neighboring river. The whole countryside was in imminent danger of a terrible holocaust if the oil on the river flowed away and ignited, as it surely would, but by superhuman efforts this danger was averted. But all other attempts to save the oil and repair the damage were almost fruitless, and for months the seepage went on, until at last the well was reduced to salt water and $20,000,000 worth of oil had been lost. This loss is technically British, although it is probable that the bill for damages will fall upon the United States, for it was undoubtedly through the instrumentality of our State Department and its emphasis of the Monroe Doctrine that Great Britain was restrained from taking action. Another item to be noted is the great Carranza tax system which continued in full force into the era of Obregon and costs the oil companies some $4,000,000 per month. Part of this may be recognized in time as legitimate, but it violates the letter of the franchises of most of the companies. To this bill of claims will also be added the losses incident to carrying out the orders of our Department of State for all Americans to withdraw from Mexico on two occasions. Each time about one month’s production was lost. I have noted above the far-reaching possibilities of destruction to oil properties entailed in the “nationalization” plans. While these are in abeyance pending “investigation and legislation” the oil companies have other drains on their resources, such as government levies for dredging the river at Tampico (while the companies’ own dredges do the work), the requirement of special licenses to drill each well, and the virtual curtailment of all development work outside the Tampico-Tuxpam district. All add to the total loot of the revolutionists, and continue the threat against foreign business development throughout all Mexico.