Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary

Outside the U.S., oil exploration in the Western Hemisphere centered on Mexico. Two companies predominated: Doheny's Pan American Petroleum and Sir Weetman Pearson's Mexican Eagle. In 1900, Doheny began scouting oil territories for the Mexican State Railways. Meanwhile, Pearson was invited to Mexico for a series of large-scale engineering projects, where he ingratiated himself to the calculating anti-American dictator, Porfirio Díaz. Three months after the Spindletop discovery, Pearson launched his Mexican venture, hiring Captain Lucas to assist. In1909, they struck oil on the "Golden Lane" near Tampico, quickly making Mexico a major oil power. In 1911, Díaz was violently overthrown and Gulbenkian bought Mexican Eagle. Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 declared that all subsurface resources belonged to the nation. Doheny led lobbying in Washington for military intervention to protect vital American-owned oil reserves in Mexico. American banks...