The scale of the transformation and its martial consequences is correctly conceived in this editorial as the oil-based economy heralded a whole new axis around which international conflict turned.

‘Entering the Era of Oil’ from Industrial Worker. Vol. 1 (new) No. 60. June 12, 1920.

The era of oil is here. From now on coal will be less and less a factor in our economic life. Oil is our next king. “White coal”–the development of water-power, has great possibilities on land, but on the water there is no question of the supremacy of oil as a means of locomotion. Even on land oil-burning engines are displacing those that require coal.

Every new ship that is launched is an oil-burner. Old ships are rapidly being converted to use the more economical fuel. The commerce of the world glides through a sea whose surface has been made smooth with oil. The sea itself is of human blood; read the war news if you doubt that oil is the thing of importance in the industrial world.

Instead of oil on the troubled waters we can now look for trouble in the oil lands. Britain wants to remain mistress of the seas. America challenges and must have foreign markets as an outlet for its wares. Japan is now one of the world’s great industrial powers whose imperial ambitions are beyond measurement. Russia is the Republic of Labor upon which rests the duty of demonstrating the economic superiority of a new social system. Each of the world powers must have oil. Petroleum and patriotism become one and the same thing.

The war map shows that Trotsky and his aides consider the control of the Baku oil fields of greater importance than the defense of the rich wheat lands of the Ukraine. The soldiers of Soviet Russia offered little opposition to the advance of the Polish army into the farming area but they fought like Trojans for every foot of territory that would provide the oil needed for their own socialized industries. Oil meant more boats on the Volga and a relief from the railway strain.

Great Britain is now backing Poland in an offensive that has as its objective the capture of the East Galician oil fields in order to have first claim on the oil concessions in case the Poles succeed, just as she maintained a large armed force at Batoum–the Black Sea end of the Baku oil pipe line–and furnished Denikin’s Caspian fleet with English officers and men in hopes of guaranteeing British control of Baku. The Red Army responds to this backing with a drive on Persia, knowing that it is upon Persia and Mesopotamia that Britain relies for petroleum in the Near East. And the United States is being urged to accept a mandate for Armenia–which has no oil wells–while Great Britain has armed garrisons and military patrol in the neighboring territories where oil flows. Oil is the big issue.

The British oil policy is a definite one. A majority interest in the ordinary shares of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company have been acquired by the British government. In Mexico, last year, thru the firm of J.P. Morgan & Co., of New York City, the British government converted the private holdings of many English capitalists into government property–government ownership within the confines of a foreign government. Two-thirds of the improved oil fields in Central and South America are reputed to be owned by Great Britain. The Shell Company, a British concern, owns exclusive or controlling interest in every important oil field in the world. In Russia their legal titles are a bit clouded, Mexican control is still in doubt, South America is not so completely dominated as other countries, and their control in the United States is not yet secure, but the British control of the world’s oil supply is so nearly assured that it is the factor upon which England relies to restore the pound sterling to its pre-war rate on the New York money market. Furthermore, if correctly reported, the real reason for the failure of Dave Rodgers to start ship-building in the Seattle yards upon a large scale was because his contracts were with the Standard Oil Company for boats to carry oil between Mexico and the United States, and the Shell Oil Company used its superior economic and financial influence to prevent the yards from resuming operations. Admiral Fisher, of the British Navy, has this to say of oil:

“The oil engine…will revolutionize commerce and alter the whole art of sea war. I was dubbed an oil maniac when I was at the Admiralty in 1885. The internal combustion engine is as imperative for commerce as for war. I should build tramps to carry oil, with ever improving combustion engines fitted in them…inexpensive vessels, more or less hulls to carry these experimental internal combustion engines. A few years hence we shall require a species of hippopotami, both for sea war and sea commerce.”

The United States Geological Survey estimates that there are only seven billion barrels of known underground oil reserves in the United States and Alaska. This is only an eighteen years supply at the present rate of consumption. The importation from Mexico last year was thirty-eight million barrels of forty-two gallons each. It is mainly to Mexico that the United States must turn for its oil supply.

Mexican oil must be had even if the price is war. From a commercial standpoint the oil is an absolute necessity–and the commercial standpoint is the dominant standpoint today. There is no need to go into recent Mexican history. Carranza has been murdered. Obregon has been elevated to office. Oil did it. The “great man” theory does not fit in with the facts, but all the facts proclaim the essential soundness of the Marxian position on economic determinism.

If America’s economic expansion is accomplished at the price of peaceful submission by Mexico, a very remote possibility, there would still be contending forces in the economic field seeking the control of oil. Allies are only allies until the enemy is conquered and the best of thieves fall out when the swag is to be divided. This is the era of oil and blood.

The Industrial Union Bulletin, and the Industrial Worker were newspapers published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1907 until 1913. First printed in Joliet, Illinois, IUB incorporated The Voice of Labor, the newspaper of the American Labor Union which had joined the IWW, and another IWW affiliate, International Metal Worker.The Trautmann-DeLeon faction issued its weekly from March 1907. Soon after, De Leon would be expelled and Trautmann would continue IUB until March 1909. It was edited by A. S. Edwards. 1909, production moved to Spokane, Washington and became The Industrial Worker, “the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism.”

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