The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-07-09
CALL COLOMBIA
new ARENA OF
PETROLEUM WAR
British Creep Closer to
Panama Canal

WASHINGTON, July 8.-Will
the government of the United
States go to war against the gov
eminent of Great Britain-thereby
starting a worldwide holocaust-to
determine whether Standard or
Royal Dutch-Shell shall dominate
the oil supply of the globe?
Ludwell Denny, former news
paper man, has written a book to
point out to the two nations the
peril of this competition for petro-
leum. His book is entitled eve
Fight For Oil" and is published by
Alfred A. Knopf. 1t is a well-pro-
portioned history of the way in
which the United States State De
partment has fought the British
government, in every oil-bearing
corner of the earth, to bring final
control over the oil markets of the
world to American rather than to
British capital. 1t is closely packed
with documentary quotations that
will surprise the ordinary citizen.
1t tears the mask off diplomatic
moralizing, and shows the United
States and the British government
facing each other in relentless mu-
tual determination to win the race
for oil, even if it comes to the
wholesale massacre that is called
war for national self-defense.
The British government owns a
majority of the stock in the Anglo
Persian Oil Company, which is one
of the most aggressive of the big
competitors who are getting control
of vast tracts of oil lands in the
Near and Middle East, in Central
and South America and elsewhere.
Under complete governmental
direction also, Denny shows, is Brit
ish controlled oilfields, which has
concessions that surround two-thirds
of the Caribbean Sea. Both of
these agencies of the British gov
eminent have Unanswered in the
direction of the Panama Canal.
thereby stirring the state depart
ment to some of it's strongest anti
British protests. The story of
Latin-American relations wi t h
Washington, as Denny recites it by
means of quotations from the utter
ances of the department, is soaked
in oil. And so, too, is the story of
American policy toward the Soviet
Union, Turkey, Armenia, Persia and
Rumania.
Sir Henri Deterding, the "Napo-
leon" of the petroleum industry
since he became the dominating fig
ure in Royal Dutch-Shell and began
his march toward control of the
world supply of oil, is traced through
this maze of intrigues, international
conferences, double-crossings, bluff
ings, reconciliations always the
strong man against whom the in
telligence of Standard and the
power of the state department are
pitted. By turns Deterding woos
the Soviet government and de-
nounces it in tones of horror-ac-
cording to the moments success or
failure in his long game of getting
the Russian oil supplies. When
Standard defeats him there his rage
is loosed and Charles Evans Hughes
is brought forward as moral en-
dorser of the arrangement Standard
has made with Moscow.
Denny amuses himself and his
readers by quoting the editorials
from reactionary American papers
last fall sympathizing with Stan
ards action in buying Soviet oil
although Deterding shouted that
this was stolen" by the Soviet gov
eminent from its former owners.
And the author mischievously brings
in the fact that the United States
Shipping Board last winter pur-
chased from Standard $4,000 tons of
this same "stolen" oil, delivered to
it in Near East ports.
But an American oil shortage is