R. Morel, who is the leader in England of the movement for the
improvement of the Congo, has written: "It is a little difficult to
imagine that the trust magnates are moulded upon the unique model of
Leopold II, and are prepared for the asking to become associates in
slave-driving. The trouble is that they probably know nothing about
African conditions, that they have been primed by the King with his
detestable theories, and are starting their enterprises on the basis
that the natives of Central Africa must be regarded as mere
'laborers' for the white man's benefit, possessing no rights in land
nor in the produce of the soil. If Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are
going to acquire their rubber over four thousand square miles, by
'commercial methods,' we welcome their advent. But we would point
out to them that, in such a case, they had better at once abandon
all idea of three or four hundred per cent dividends with which the
wily autocrat at Brussels has doubtless primed them. No such
monstrous profits are to be acquired in tropical Africa under a
trade system. If, on the other hand, the methods they are prepared
to adopt are the methods King Leopold and his other concessionaires
have adopted for the past thirteen years, devastation and
destruction, and the raising of more large bodies of soldiers, are
their essential accompaniments; and the widening of the area of the
Congo hell is assured."
The two things in the American invasion of the Congo that promise
good to that unhappy country are that our country is represented at
Boma by a most intelligent, honest, and fearless young man in the
person of James A.
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