This situation calls for a policy prompt, determined, and looking many years ahead. For the American Navy and the American merchant marine and American trade abroad must depend to some extent upon our being able to secure, not merely for to-day but for to-morrow as well, an equal opportunity with other nations to gain a petroleum supply from the fields of the world. We are now in the world and of it in every possible sense, otherwise our Navy and our merchant fleet would have no excuse. No one needs to justify them—they are the expression of an ambition that carries no danger to any people. For their support we can ask no preference, but in their maintenance we can insist that they shall not be discriminated against.
Sometime since I presented to a board of geologists, engineers, and economists in this department this question:
If in the next five years there should develop a new demand for petroleum over and above that now existing, which would amount to 100,000,000 barrels a year, where could such a supply be found, and what policy should be adopted to secure it?
The conclusions of this board may be summarized as follows:
(1) Such an oil need could not be met from domestic sources of supply.
(2) It could not be assured unless equal opportunities were given our nationals for commercial development of foreign oils.
(3) Assurance of this oil supply therefore inevitably entails political as well as commercial competition with other nationals, as other nationals controlling foreign sources of supply have adopted policies that discriminate against, hinder, and even prevent our nationals entering foreign fields.
(4) The encouragement of and effective assistance to our nationals in developing foreign fields is essential to securing the oil needed.
(5) Commercial control by our nationals over large foreign sources of supply will be essential if the estimated requirements are to be assured.