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The conversation might much more profitably have been limited to oil. It is less than seven years since the first Venezuelan bonanza gusher, "La Rosa," was brought in, but last year Gómez Land gushed 85 million barrels, or slightly less than one-twelfth of the world's production. It costs less to carry Venezuelan oil by tramp steamer to Manhattan, than to carry the oil of Oklahoma by rail to the same place. Thus every U. S. motorist on the Atlantic seaboard has a dollars-and-cents interest in Venezuela and in her Government. Law-abiding motorists must have viewed with alarm last week the fact that "Gómez the Meritorious" seemed about to succeed himself, in flat violation of the Venezuelan Constitution which provides that no man while President of the Republic can stand for reelection.
Right up to the hour of voting, no other candidate was mentioned in despatches. But when ballots were counted the Congress was found to have elected Supreme Court Justice Juan Bautista Perez to be President of Venezuela for 15 days. After that, one Juan Vicente Gómez, just a private citizen though Dictator, will be elected President, unless all prognostications fail. The 15-day President is of course one of Dictator Gómez's little jokes, enabling him to circumvent the Constitution.