[_Throws down pamphlets which he has been reading. Excitedly combs his
flowing spread of whiskers with his fingers; pounds the table with his
fists; lets off brisk volleys of unsanctified language at brief
intervals, repentantly drooping his head, between volleys, and kissing
the Louis XI crucifix hanging from his neck, accompanying the kisses
with mumbled apologies; presently rises, flushed and perspiring, and
walks the floor, gesticulating_]
—— ——!! —— ——!! If I had them by the throat! [_Hastily kisses the
crucifix, and mumbles_] In these twenty years I have spent millions to
keep the press of the two hemispheres quiet, and still these leaks keep
on occurring. I have spent other millions on religion and art, and what
do I get for it? Nothing. Not a compliment. These generosities are
studiedly ignored, in print. In print I get nothing but slanders—and
slanders again—and still slanders, and slanders on top of slanders!
Grant them true, what of it? They are slanders all the same, when
uttered against a king.
Miscreants—they are telling _everything_! Oh, everything: how I went
pilgriming among the Powers in tears, with my mouth full of Bible and my
pelt oozing piety at every pore, and implored them to place the vast and
rich and populous Congo Free State in trust in my hands as their agent,
so that I might root out slavery and stop the slave raids, and lift up
those twenty-five millions of gentle and harmless blacks out of darkness
into light, the light of our blessed Redeemer, the light that streams
from his holy Word, the light that makes glorious our noble
civilization—lift them up and dry their tears and fill their bruised
hearts with joy and gratitude—lift them up and make them comprehend that
they were no longer outcasts and forsaken, but our very brothers in
Christ; how America and thirteen great European states wept in sympathy
with me, and were persuaded; how their representatives met in convention
in Berlin and made me Head Foreman and Superintendent of the Congo
State, and drafted out my powers and limitations, carefully guarding the
persons and liberties and properties of the natives against hurt and
harm; forbidding whisky traffic and gun traffic; providing courts of
justice; making commerce free and fetterless to the merchants and
traders of all nations, and welcoming and safeguarding all missionaries
of all creeds and denominations. They have told how I planned and
prepared my establishment and selected my horde of officials—“pals” and
“pimps” of mine, “unspeakable Belgians” every one—and hoisted my flag,
and “took in” a President of the United States, and got him to be the
first to recognize it and salute it. Oh, well, let them blackguard me if
they like; it is a deep satisfaction to me to remember that I was a
shade too smart for that nation that thinks itself so smart. Yes, I
certainly did bunco a Yankee—as those people phrase it. Pirate flag? Let
them call it so—perhaps it is. All the same, _they were the first to
salute it_.
[Illustration:
“They were the first to salute it”
]
These meddlesome American missionaries! these frank British consuls!
these blabbing Belgian-born traitor officials!—those tiresome parrots
are always talking, always telling. They have told how for twenty years
I have ruled the Congo State not as a trustee of the Powers, an agent, a
subordinate, a foreman, but as a sovereign—sovereign over a fruitful
domain four times as large as the German Empire—sovereign absolute,
irresponsible, above all law; trampling the Berlin-made Congo charter
under foot; barring out all foreign traders but myself; restricting
commerce to myself, through concessionaires who are my creatures and
confederates; seizing and holding the State as my personal property, the
whole of its vast revenues as my private “swag”—mine, solely
mine—claiming and holding its millions of people as my private property,
my serfs, my slaves; their labor mine, with or without wage; the food
they raise not their property but mine; the rubber, the ivory and all
the other riches of the land mine—mine solely—and gathered for me by the
men, the women and the little children under compulsion of lash and
bullet, fire, starvation, mutilation and the halter.
These pests!—it is as I say, they have kept back nothing! They have
revealed these and yet other details which shame should have kept them
silent about, since they were exposures of a king, a sacred personage
and immune from reproach, by right of his selection and appointment to
his great office by God himself; a king whose acts cannot be criticized
without blasphemy, since God has observed them from the beginning and
has manifested no dissatisfaction with them, nor shown disapproval of
them, nor hampered nor interrupted them in any way. By this sign I
recognize his approval of what I have done; his cordial and glad
approval, I am sure I may say. Blest, crowned, beatified with this great
reward, this golden reward, this unspeakably precious reward, why should
I care for men’s cursings and revilings of me? [_With a sudden outburst
of feeling_] May they roast a million æons in—[_Catches his breath and
effusively kisses the crucifix; sorrowfully murmurs, “I shall get myself
damned yet, with these indiscretions of speech.”_]
Yes, they go on telling everything, these chatterers! They tell how I
levy incredibly burdensome taxes upon the natives—taxes which are a pure
theft; taxes which they must satisfy by gathering rubber under hard and
constantly harder conditions, and by raising and furnishing food
supplies gratis—and it all comes out that, when they fall short of their
tasks through hunger, sickness, despair, and ceaseless and exhausting
labor without rest, and forsake their homes and flee to the woods to
escape punishment, my black soldiers, drawn from unfriendly tribes, and
instigated and directed by my Belgians, hunt them down and butcher them
and burn their villages—reserving some of the girls. They tell it all:
how I am wiping a nation of friendless creatures out of existence by
every form of murder, for my private pocket’s sake, and how every
shilling I get costs a rape, a mutilation or a life. But they never say,
although they know it, that I have labored in the cause of religion at
the same time and all the time, and have sent missionaries there (of a
“convenient stripe,” as they phrase it), to teach them the error of
their ways and bring them to Him who is all mercy and love, and who is
the sleepless guardian and friend of all who suffer. They tell only what
is against me, they will not tell what is in my favor.
They tell how England required of me a Commission of Inquiry into Congo
atrocities, and how, to quiet that meddling country, with its
disagreeable Congo Reform Association, made up of earls and bishops and
John Morleys and university grandees and other dudes, more interested in
other people’s business than in their own. I appointed it. Did it stop
their mouths? No, they merely pointed out that it was a commission
composed wholly of my “Congo butchers,” “the very men whose acts were to
be inquired into.” They said it was equivalent to appointing a
commission of wolves to inquire into depredations committed upon a
sheepfold. _Nothing_ can satisfy a cursed Englishman![1]
Footnote 1:
This visit had a more fortunate result than was anticipated. One
member of the Commission was a leading Congo official, another an
official of the government in Belgium, the third a Swiss jurist. It
was feared that the work of the Commission would not be more genuine
than that of innumerable so-called “investigations” by local
officials. But it appears that the Commission was met by a very
avalanche of awful testimony. One who was present at a public hearing
writes: “Men of stone would be moved by the stories that are being
unfolded as the Commission probes into the awful history of rubber
collection.” It is evident the commissioners were moved. Of their
report and its bearing upon the international issue presented by the
conceded conditions in the Congo State, something is said on a
supplementary page of this pamphlet. Certain reforms were ordered by
the Commission in the one section visited, but the latest word is that
after its departure conditions were soon worse than before its
coming.—M. T.
[Illustration:
“They tell only what is against me.”—_Page 10._
]
And were the fault-finders frank with my private character? They could
not be more so if I were a plebeian, a peasant, a mechanic. They remind
the world that from the earliest days my house has been chapel and
brothel combined, and both industries working full time; that I
practised cruelties upon my queen and my daughters, and supplemented
them with daily shame and humiliations; that, when my queen lay in the
happy refuge of her coffin, and a daughter implored me on her knees to
let her look for the last time upon her mother’s face, I refused; and
that, three years ago, not being satisfied with the stolen spoils of a
whole alien nation, I robbed my own child of her property and appeared
by proxy in court, a spectacle to the civilized world, to defend the act
and complete the crime. It is as I have said: they are unfair, unjust;
they will resurrect and give new currency to such things as those, or to
any other things that count against me, but they will not mention any
act of mine that is in my favor. I have spent more money on art than any
other monarch of my time, and they know it. Do they speak of it, do they
tell about it? No, they do not. They prefer to work up what they call
“ghastly statistics” into offensive kindergarten object lessons, whose
purpose is to make sentimental people shudder, and prejudice them
against me. They remark that “if the innocent blood shed in the Congo
State by King Leopold were put in buckets and the buckets placed side by
side, the line would stretch 2,000 miles; if the skeletons of his ten
millions of starved and butchered dead could rise up and march in single
file, it would take them seven months and four days to pass a given
point; if compacted together in a body, they would occupy more ground
than St. Louis covers, World’s Fair and all; if they should all clap
their bony hands at once, the grisly crash would be heard at a distance
of—” Damnation, it makes me tired! And they do similar miracles with the
money I have distilled from that blood and put into my pocket. They pile
it into Egyptian pyramids; they carpet Saharas with it; they spread it
across the sky, and the shadow it casts makes twilight in the earth. And
the tears I have caused, the hearts I have broken—oh, nothing can
persuade them to let _them_ alone!
[_Meditative pause_] Well ... no matter, I _did_ beat the Yankees,
anyway! there’s comfort in that. [_Reads with mocking smile, the
President’s Order of Recognition of April 22, 1884_]
“... the government of the United States announces its sympathy with
and approval of the humane and benevolent purposes of (my Congo
scheme), and will order the officers of the United States, both on
land and sea, to recognize its flag as the flag of a friendly
government.”
Possibly the Yankees would like to take that back, now, but they will
find that my agents are not over there in America for nothing. But there
is no danger; neither nations nor governments can afford to confess a
blunder. [_With a contented smile, begins to read from “Report by Rev.
W. M. Morrison, American missionary in the Congo Free State”_]
“I furnish herewith some of the many atrocious incidents which have
come under my own personal observation; they reveal the _organized
system_ of plunder and outrage which has been perpetrated and is now
being carried on in that unfortunate country by King Leopold of
Belgium. I say King Leopold, because he and he _alone_ is now
responsible, since he is the _absolute sovereign_. _He styles
himself such._ When our government in 1884 laid the foundation of
the Congo Free State, by recognizing its flag, little did it know
that this concern, parading under the guise of philanthropy, was
really King Leopold of Belgium, one of the shrewdest, most heartless
and most conscienceless rulers that ever sat on a throne. This is
apart from his known corrupt morals, which have made his name and
his family a byword in two continents. Our government would most
certainly not have recognized that flag had it known that it was
really King Leopold individually who was asking for recognition; had
it known that it was setting up in the heart of Africa an _absolute
monarchy_; had it known that, having put down African slavery in our
own country at great cost of blood and money, it was _establishing a
worse form of slavery right in Africa_.”
[_With evil joy_] Yes, I certainly was a shade too clever for the
Yankees. It hurts; it gravels them. They can’t get over it! Puts a shame
upon them in another way, too, and a graver way; for they never can rid
their records of the reproachful fact that their vain Republic,
self-appointed Champion and Promoter of the Liberties of the World, is
the only democracy in history that has lent its power and influence to
the establishing of an _absolute monarchy_!
[Illustration:
“They go to them with their sorrows”
]
[_Contemplating, with an unfriendly eye, a stately pile of pamphlets_]
Blister the meddlesome missionaries! They write tons of these things.
They seem to be always around, always spying, always eye-witnessing the
happenings; and everything they see they commit to paper. They are
always prowling from place to place; the natives consider them their
only friends; they go to them with their sorrows; they show them their
scars and their wounds, inflicted by my soldier police; they hold up the
stumps of their arms and lament because their hands have been chopped
off, as punishment for not bringing in enough rubber, and as proof to be
laid before my officers that the required punishment was well and truly
carried out. One of these missionaries saw eighty-one of these hands
drying over a fire for transmission to my officials—and of course he
must go and set it down and print it. They travel and travel, they spy
and spy! And nothing is too trivial for them to print. [_Takes up a
pamphlet. Reads a passage from Report of a “Journey made in July, August
and September, 1903, by Rev. A. E. Scrivener, a British missionary”_]
“... Soon we began talking, and without any encouragement on my part
the natives began the tales I had become so accustomed to. They were
living in peace and quietness when the white men came in from the
lake with all sorts of requests to do this and that, and they
thought it meant slavery. So they attempted to keep the white men
out of their country but without avail. The rifles were too much for
them. So they submitted and made up their minds to do the best they
could under the altered circumstances. First came the command to
build houses for the soldiers, and this was done without a murmur.
Then they had to feed the soldiers and all the men and women—hangers
on—who accompanied them. Then they were told to bring in rubber.
This was quite a new thing for them to do. There was rubber in the
forest several days away from their home, but that it was worth
anything was news to them. A small reward was offered and a rush was
made for the rubber. ‘What strange white men, to give us cloth and
beads for the sap of a wild vine.’ They rejoiced in what they
thought their good fortune. But soon the reward was reduced until at
last they were told to bring in the rubber for nothing. To this they
tried to demur; but to their great surprise several were shot by the
soldiers, and the rest were told, with many curses and blows, to go
at once or more would be killed. Terrified, they began to prepare
their food for the fortnight’s absence from the village which the
collection of rubber entailed. The soldiers discovered them sitting
about. ‘What, not gone yet?’ Bang! bang! bang! and down fell one and
another, dead, in the midst of wives and companions. There is a
terrible wail and an attempt made to prepare the dead for burial,
but this is not allowed. All must go at once to the forest. Without
food? Yes, without food. And off the poor wretches had to go without
even their tinder boxes to make fires. Many died in the forests of
hunger and exposure, and still more from the rifles of the ferocious
soldiers in charge of the post. In spite of all their efforts the
amount fell off and more and more were killed. I was shown around
the place, and the sites of former big chiefs’ settlements were
pointed out. A careful estimate made the population of, say, seven
years ago, to be 2,000 people in and about the post, within a radius
of, say, a quarter of a mile. All told, they would not muster 200
now, and there is so much sadness and gloom about them that they are
fast decreasing.”
“We stayed there all day on Monday and had many talks with the
people. On the Sunday some of the boys had told me of some bones
which they had seen, so on the Monday I asked to be shown these
bones. Lying about on the grass, within a few yards of the house I
was occupying, were numbers of human skulls, bones, in some cases
complete skeletons. I counted thirty-six skulls, and saw many sets
of bones from which the skulls were missing. I called one of the men
and asked the meaning of it. ‘When the rubber palaver began,’ said
he, ‘the soldiers shot so many we grew tired of burying, and very
often we were not allowed to bury; and so just dragged the bodies
out into the grass and left them. There are hundreds all around if
you would like to see them.’ But I had seen more than enough, and
was sickened by the stories that came from men and women alike of
the awful time they had passed through. The Bulgarian atrocities
might be considered as mildness itself when compared with what was
done here. How the people submitted I don’t know, and even now I
wonder as I think of their patience. That some of them managed to
run away is some cause for thankfulness. I stayed there two days and
the one thing that impressed itself upon me was the collection of
rubber. I saw long files of men come in, as at Bongo, with their
little baskets under their arms; saw them paid their milk tin full
of salt, and the two yards of calico flung to the headmen; saw their
trembling timidity, and in fact a great deal that all went to prove
the state of terrorism that exists and the virtual slavery in which
the people are held.”
[Illustration:
“Some bones which they had seen”
]
That is their way; they spy and spy, and run into print with every
foolish trifle. And that British consul, Mr. Casement, is just like
them. He gets hold of a _diary which had been kept by one of my
government officers_, and, although it is a private diary and intended
for no eye but its owner’s, Mr. Casement is so lacking in delicacy and
refinement as to print passages from it. [_Reads a passage from the
diary_]
“Each time the corporal goes out to get rubber, cartridges are given
him. He must bring back all not used, and for every one used he must
bring back a right hand. M. P. told me that sometimes they shot a
cartridge at an animal in hunting; they then cut off a hand from a
living man. As to the extent to which this is carried on, he
informed me that in six months the State on the Mambogo River had
used 6,000 cartridges, which means that 6,000 people are killed or
mutilated. It means more than 6,000, for the people have told me
repeatedly that the soldiers kill the children with the butt of
their guns.”
When the subtle consul thinks silence will be more effective than words,
he employs it. Here he leaves it to be recognized that a thousand
killings and mutilations a month is a large output for so small a region
as the Mambogo River concession, silently indicating the dimensions of
it by accompanying his report with a map of the prodigious Congo State,
in which there is not room for so small an object as that river. That
silence is intended to say, “If it is a thousand a month in this little
corner, imagine the output of the whole vast State!” A gentleman would
not descend to these furtivenesses.
[Illustration:
FOOT AND HAND OF CHILD DISMEMBERED BY SOLDIERS, BROUGHT TO
MISSIONARIES BY DAZED FATHER. FROM PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT BARINGA,
CONGO STATE, MAY 15, 1904. SEE MEMORIAL TO CONGRESS, JANUARY, 1905
“Imagine the output of the whole vast State!”—_Page 18._
]
Now as to the mutilations. You can’t head off a Congo critic and make
him stay headed-off; he dodges, and straightway comes back at you from
another direction. They are full of slippery arts. When the mutilations
(severing hands, unsexing men, etc.) began to stir Europe, we hit upon
the idea of excusing them with a retort which we judged would knock them
dizzy on that subject for good and all, and leave them nothing more to
say; to wit, we boldly laid the custom on the natives, and said we did
not invent it, but only followed it. Did it knock them dizzy? did it
shut their mouths? Not for an hour. They dodged, and came straight back
at us with the remark that “if a Christian king can perceive a saving
moral difference between inventing bloody barbarities, and _imitating
them from savages_, for charity’s sake let him get what comfort he can
out of his confession!”
It is most amazing, the way that that consul acts—that spy, that
busy-body. [_Takes up pamphlet “Treatment of Women and Children in the
Congo State; what Mr. Casement Saw in 1903”_] _Hardly two years ago!_
_Intruding_ that date upon the public was a piece of cold malice. It was
intended to weaken the force of my press syndicate’s assurances to the
public that my severities in the Congo _ceased_, and ceased utterly,
_years and years ago_. This man is fond of trifles—revels in them,
gloats over them, pets them, fondles them, sets them all down. One
doesn’t need to drowse through his monotonous report to see that; the
mere subheadings of its chapters prove it. [_Reads_]
“Two hundred and forty persons, _men, women and children_, compelled
to supply government with _one ton_ of carefully prepared foodstuffs
_per week_, receiving in remuneration, all told, the princely sum of
15s. 10d!”
Very well, it was liberal. It was not much short of a penny a week for
each nigger. It suits this consul to belittle it, yet he knows very well
that I could have had both the food and the labor for nothing. I can
prove it by a thousand instances. [_Reads_]
“Expedition against a village behindhand in its (compulsory)
supplies; result, slaughter of sixteen persons; among them three
women and a boy of five years. Ten carried off, to be prisoners till
ransomed; among them a child, who died during the march.”
But he is careful not to explain that we are _obliged_ to resort to
ransom to collect debts, where the people have nothing to pay with.
Families that escape to the woods sell some of their members into
slavery and thus provide the ransom. He knows that I would stop this if
I could find a less objectionable way to collect their debts.... Mm—here
is some more of the consul’s delicacy! He reports a conversation he had
with some natives:
Q. “How do you know it was the _white_ men themselves who ordered
these cruel things to be done to you? These things must have been
done without the white man’s knowledge by the black soldiers.”
A. “The white men told their soldiers: ‘You only kill _women_; you
cannot kill men. You must prove that you kill men.’ So then the
soldiers when they killed us” (here he stopped and hesitated and
then pointing to ... he said:) “then they ... and took them to the
white men, who said: ‘It is true, you have killed _men_.’”
Q. “You say this is true? Were many of you so treated after being
shot?”