The Most Difficult Moment

The problem was that oilmen were forced to choose between so many conflicting authorities during the Revolution. The military factions that controlled certain areas of Mexico always took it upon themselves to collect the taxes and issue permits, denying jurisdiction to other domestic powers, no matter which of them happened to occupy the national palace in Mexico City. Oilmen who sold to the internal market had to deal with different factions in each sales area. In the fields, they often had to treat with two factions at once, one collecting export taxes at the ports of Tampico and Tuxpan and the other controlling the oil patches. The oilmen reacted as best they were able.

The confusion of authority began soon after Huerta took power, when the Constitutionalist forces loyal to Venustiano Carranza first invaded the oil fields. In May, General Lárraga and two hundred troops appeared at El Ebano. He arrested the superintendent, helped himself to supplies, exacted a "loan" of five thousand pesos, and went away with all the rifles in camp.^[39] Gen. Cándido Aguilar arrived in the southern fields in November and ordered the cessation of drilling and pipeline operations. He demanded the payment of two hundred thousand pesos to the new military authorities. Within three days, Aguilar permitted oilmen to resume pipeline operations, so long as they did not sell oil to any of the Mexican railways within federally controlled areas. Local managers were forced to shut in their prolific wells at Potrero del Llano, Alazán, and Naranjos. Around the mighty Potrero No. 4, the gas pressure soon broke fissures through the ground. It was this damage, oilmen said, that led to the three-month conflagration that nearly destroyed El Aguila's great well.^[40]

Aguilar also demanded a tax payment of fifty thousand pesos from the Huasteca oil fields, although he later accepted a payment of ten thousand pesos. Huasteca's operations had not been interrupted, although the Aguilar forces confiscated all the arms in the Huasteca camps. Still, Huasteca was not a company that relished paying taxes to two authorities. Harold Walker suspended tax payments to the federal government at Tampico, a tactic justified by the U.S. failure to recognize Huerta. Subsequently, when Walker was in Mexico City on business, Huerta threatened him with death. Walker promptly signed a draft for one hundred thousand pesos to cover the unpaid federal taxes.

Once Walker was safely out of the city, the company then canceled payment on the draft.^[41]

Most of the Waters-Pierce assets remained in Tampico, still controlled by Huerta's troops. Therefore, Pierce was worried when the Constitutionalists ordered him to discontinue fuel oil deliveries to Huerta's troop trains. Knowing of Washington's attitude toward Huerta, Pierce asked for U.S. protection, going so far as to notify the State Department of the location of his refinery, storage tanks, pipelines, oil wells, and floating craft. Was he expecting — or hoping for — a U.S. invasion? Upriver at Pánuco, Shell's employees of La Corona Company had strict orders not to meddle in Mexican politics. Yet, now La Corona too was confronted with a problem of knowing to whom to pay oil taxes. Should it pay to the Constitutionalists, whose troops occupied Pánuco after December 1913, or to Huerta's troops still in Tampico?^[42]

All of the oilmen had to use their best diplomacy in order to placate all the parties. They also had to avoid alienating competing political factions but at a reasonable cost. El Aguila's managers desired to operate with both the Constitutionalists and Huerta. Therefore, they decided to pay Huerta's new taxes — even though existing contracts gave them tax exemptions. Meanwhile, El Aguila, Huasteca, and Waters-Pierce all acceded to General Aguilar's orders not to sell fuel oil to Huerta's railroads.^[43] To complicate matters, Huerta's federal troops retained control of the isthmus, where El Aguila had a refinery and several minor oil fields. General Aguilar, a Constitutionalist, summoned J. B. Body to his headquarters at Tuxpan to pay a $120,000 tax bill on the isthmus properties. Body sent his vice president, Ryder, to temporize with the Constitutionalist commander. Body also saw fit to leave Tampico just before the arrival of Carranza, after that city had fallen to the Constitutionalists. He did not wish to arouse Huerta's suspicions. At the same time, when it appeared likely that the Constitutionalist rebellion was going to succeed, the oilmen scrambled to sell fuel oil to Carranza, so as not to appear partisans of Huerta. Then Carranza ordered El Aguila to halt deliveries of oil from Tuxpan, held by constitucionalistas, to its refinery in Minatitlán controlled by the huertistas. In response, the huertistas prevented the refined products of the Minatitlán refinery to pass into Constitutionalist-held territory.^[44] Few companies were immune from this domestic struggle for power during the Revolution. The National Petroleum Company of Richmond, Virginia, had been leasing land from the National Railways of Mexico. When the rent came due, the Constitutionalists demanded payment be

made to them. So did the Huerta government. The dilemma was shortlived, however, as the Constitutionalists soon took complete control of the National Railway system.^[45]

Such problems for oilmen even outlasted Huerta, because the Constitutionalists did not recognize any contracts that oilmen had made with the huertista government. Both Jersey Standard and Shell officials had built riverside storage and terminal facilities while Huerta controlled Tampico. After the Carranza troops took over, both companies had to present their "illegal permits and contracts" to Tampico's new officials.^[46] In the meanwhile, Huasteca had made an agreement with the Constitutionalists to supply their fuel oil needs during their struggle with Huerta. The value of these supplies was to be used to defray the future payment of taxes to Carranza. Carranza's need for funds became acute soon after Huerta's fall, when Villa and Zapata occupied Mexico City. Carranza's agents ordered Huasteca to pay them 665,000 pesos in back taxes. Huasteca declared that it had already provided the Constitutionalists with 685,000-pesos-worth of fuel oil, essentially paying these taxes in advance. Cables passed from Huasteca's New York attorney F. R. Kellogg, the secretary of state, and the British ambassador in Washington. Their diplomatic intervention helped resolve the matter.^[47] Once they realized that the Carranza victory did not end the domestic political conflict (for Villa and Zapata immediately rebelled against the new government), the oilmen openly expressed nostalgia for a simpler time — the era of Porfirio Díaz.

The longer these conflicts continued, the more the oilmen sought refuge with a new ally, the diplomatic community. They did so in violation of their Mexican government contracts and permits, almost all of which treated the companies as if they were Mexican entities. In disputes with the government, the companies were to seek remedies in Mexican courts, not with foreign governments. Of course, the Mexican court system was deteriorating as rapidly as the domestic political situation. Oilmen naturally turned increasingly to their home governments. Diplomatic support had been nearly nonexistent during the Díaz regime. Indeed, it had been unnecessary. Revolutionary times provoked more diplomatic activities in defense of the oilmen. Domestic factions least in favor with the foreign governments were encouraged to wrap themselves in the cloak of nationalism. It was a refuge of sorts for an increasingly beleaguered Victoriano Huerta. American, British, and even Dutch gunboats appeared off the shores of Tampico and Tuxpan in order to "defend" the lives of foreigners. Some managers of the

Dutch company, La Corona, began to live aboard the Dutch cruiser Kortenaer. Dutch marines and the ship's crew worked for La Corona, because many of the skilled workers had fled.^[48]

Without having been asked, the Dutch even attempted to mediate between the Constitutionalists and Huerta. One Dutch businessman laid before Huerta a plan for immediate elections approved by the American secretary of state. President Huerta was indignant. He cursed the American president and his new diplomatic representative in Mexico. He also deplored the presence of foreign naval vessels at Veracruz and Tampico. "No one has the right to intervene in our domestic politics," Huerta shouted, "and if the United States continues to do so — then I will defend the honor of Mexico as long as one Mexican is still alive." Reported the chastised mediator to the Dutch foreign minister: "That, Excellence, was the most difficult moment I have experienced in my life."^[49]

More and more, the petty vexations aroused a desire among oilmen for some diplomatic or even foreign military solution. Other companies had followed Waters-Pierce's example of informing the U.S. government of its valuable installations, presumably so that these would become an integral part of the military plans should an American invasion come. Even the British and Dutch were half expecting U.S. intervention. Given President Wilson's disgust for the Huerta regime, British and Dutch businessmen felt that the United States was obliged to protect non-American properties too. Everyone wanted to avoid in Tampico the kind of looting of the foreign community that had occurred after Villa's troops took Torreón. The Dutch and British ambassadors in Washington said they held the United States responsible for any damage the Constitutionalists might inflict, since Wilson and Bryan were backing Carranza and Villa. El Aguila began to take precautions. "My dear Hugh," Cowdray wrote to the commander of the HMS Essex, introducing him to Body in Mexico, who was to "tell you the nearest way to our oil fields in the event of trouble arising, so that they can be adequately protected."^[50]

Clearly, the demand was mounting for some kind of resolution of the unsettled situation in Tampico. But the oilmen were hardly of one mind about what should be done. "Does not the situation appeal to you as one in which our Government should see that its citizens should not be despoiled of their property?" the National Petroleum Company asked Secretary Bryan.^[51] But El Aguila looked upon military intervention with horror. "We know that if the United States decides upon

intervention as one way of dealing with the situation," Body observed, "no foreign life or property will be safe."^[52] Intervention is what they got; but it was to be intervention of the American government's choosing — not the oilmen's.