Dictator & Refineries

Chief upshot of the long-drawn war for the steamy Gran Chaco between Bolivia and Paraguay was that in both Republics the constitutional governments were overthrown, replaced by tight little military- fascist juntas. Last week in La Paz the Bolivian junta headed by excitable Colonel Jose David Toro capitalized on the scare that its overthrow was being plotted by Standard Oil Co. (N. J.). To President Toro, as that shrewd politico had foreseen, came prompt reassurances from the Government-organized syndicates of workers, miners and railway workers pledging all their strength to fend off any such attempt.

Thoroughly tired of his company's continuing to be to the Bolivian Government what the Jews are to Hitler and the Trotskyites are to Stalin, an unnamed Standard Oil official at New York last week exploded: "Preposterous, utter, sheer nonsense! We would not raise a finger or lift a telephone receiver to stir up trouble in Bolivia." Meantime, with the Bolivian press crackling away at the yanqis, President Toro quietly transferred Standard Oil's confiscated refineries to the Government-owned Yacimientos Petroleros Fiscales, prepared to give them a new whirl.

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