The Savannah morning news., 1902-07-20
FATE Links J. P. Morgan
With Romantic Adventures.

The announcement that ]. Pierpont
Morgan. August Belmont. Frederick P.
c,cott and other almost equally prom
trent financiers are interested in a
,o.mpany designing to promote and
.ynloit the rubber production of the
5istrict of Acre in South America is
nroisaic and commonplace enough to
mass with a paragraph nowadays in
tbts age of ambitious trade. Possibly
,,lv those interested would be likely to
aven remember the fact after reading
:, Yet that announcement in one
breath links matter-of-fa American
aranciers with romance that is as
wild as any that ever drew its shining
woof through the pages of the history
of the Middle Ages.
For Acre, is. or rather was, a King
dom of Ruritania.
How many persons know where Acre
is? Many maps do not even show its
name. 1t lies in a great triangle made
nv the meeting boundaries of Brazil,
Bolivia and Peru. In it are thousands
of square miles of rubber forests-no
one knows how many thousands; thou
sands of square miles of jungle-no one
knows how many; thousands of miles
of river that no one has assembled; and
savages that are cannibals.
From the borders of civilization In
South America itself, the journey into
Acre is not one of days. but of months.
Three governments squabble more or
less constantly over it's possession. But
H. ~
ment has been strong or far-reaching
enough to rule it. except systematically
and with little success.
But out of this unknown land there
drifted the news one day about three
years ago that a new republic had been
born to the Americas-the Republic of
Acre Later came an announcement
that diplomatic representative of the
new sister would start soon to intro
duce himself in Washington. Then fol-
lowed silence, broken once or twice
with scraps of news of fabulous wealth
In rubber and rare woods.
And then the Republic of Acre went
up In smoke.
Who has not read Kipling's 1.-THE
Man Who Would be King?" That
mans comrade came back after many
adventures and told the story of the
Kingship and the Bloody Ending. The
Man Who Would be King of Acre still
has to tell his story. He was a dream
er, too. And he, too, builded his King
dom with his two bare hands.
But what a Kingdom he built and
how calamity and roysteringly he lord
ed it for while! Three armies went
into the field against him before he
yielded. Three nations temporarily
sank their own differences to crush
I'm ND II
he might have defied them victorious
ly. But, like the heroes Of Kipling's
story, he and his fellow Kings of
Acre had within them, the elements
that worked for their own undoing.
Man Who Became King.
The King of Acre was Mexican.
In the City of Mexico he earned a pre-
carious living as a, baseball player.
Baseball was not lucrative in itself,
and rumor says that he was not a good
ball tosser anyway. So he looked
around for something better. 1t was
long look. 1t led him down the 18TH
mus and finally into Bolivia.s Provi=
dence only knows, by what chance of
fortune he happened to hear of the wild
district lying in that mountain-split
and riverAcut triangle. E -
AT that time Bolivia and Brazil had
restfulness over Acre. Latin republics
90 things feverishly when they do
them, and when there was action in
acre OF, rather, on the outermost boun-
cares OF it, there was a good deal.
sometimes Bolivia would mass" her
troops there, sometimes Brazil would
ponce" the district, and again at times
Feru would remember that she, too,
tlained part of the country, and then
there would be fierce goings on with
tremendous shootings and shoutings.
ana happily little bloodshed, as is the
way OF tighting south of us.
But When the ex-baseball played
happened to drop in during the course
OF ms looking there was neutrality.
Nobody appeared to care who owned
AGre' or II it was owned at all.
Then the Man Who Would Re King
got his idea
he pondered it for brief period Be-
Iore long he sought comrades and held
conferences with them. Birds of a
4eather We're they all-birds from Pun
"a arenas, in the southern jumping-off
pace OF the world; birds from Alaska,
Sius from Lisbon and Cadiz and Lon
uoh and Paris. And every man jack
u Ihem was down on his luck" and
+eauy 10 better it by any venture, des-
perate or otherwise.
Adventures of their stann rarely
nave nave the gift, and still more rarely the
lnclihatlon, to tell their deeds. 1t is
sledt PITY. For if ever one of those
,nen VINO went into Acre could tell the
"oi4a what befell them in that voyage