Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-12-17
LEOPOLD AS KING
Wise Ruler, But a Bad Hus-
band and Father.
MAN OF CONTRADICTIONS
Tender Hearted at Times, He Was
Cruel to Millions.
SPENDTHRIFT AND GAMBLER
The Kongo Atrocities for Which He
Was Blamed and His Many Es-
capades With Women.
SPENDTHRIFT AND GAMBLER


capades With Women.
A good king and a bad husband and
father, too tender hearted to sign the
death warrant of criminal, yet the
heartless eXploiter of the Kongo natives,
perhaps the shrewdest business man liv-
ing, although the most proflgate prince in
Europe. up-to-date statesman, enlight-
ened promoter of industry and commerce,
art connoisseur, benefactor of his people,
domestic tyrant. spendthrift gambler. en-
bezzler. hero of a hundred scandals in
which women notorious and obscure of
several great capitals figure. Leopold II,
king of the Belgians. man of contra
dictions, offers perhaps the most curious
study in history to the analyst OF charac-
ter. In his public capacity he has shown
many qualities of greatness. In his pri-
vate life he has been vicious. reckless and
cynical to the point of indecency Age
has brought no change in him. The clos
ing years of his life well past threescore
and ten. were marked by some of his
wisest and most public-spirited acts and
by at least one of his most fragrant ex-
cursions in the realm Of gallantry.
Francis Joseph of Austria is the only
sovereign of regal rank who outclasses
Leopold in age. for he was born in 1885
april 81. two years before Victoria as
cended the throne of England. He was a
scion of that house of SaXe-Coburg and
Gotha members of which now occupy five
European thrones. He has been king
since 1865, when December 10 he sue
ceeded his father. Leopold l.
Created the Kongo State.
The story of his reign will always have
IN fho ~ he
world because of one event in it. He was
the creator of the Kongo State (origi-
nally misnamed "Free"), that vast empire
of 100000 square miles in the heart of
Africa from which hundreds of millions
of wealth have already flowed into Chris
tendon and which has doubtless an eco
nomic future passing the imagination of
craftsmanship.
1t was in 1876 that Leopold launched
his prodigious enterprise. The congress
OF Brussels held that year and made up
Of geographers and explorers was
his opportunity. At his instance the
African International Association was
founded Henry NJ Stanley was sent
to East Africa, financed by the king and
when in 1877 he revealed to Europe the
vastness and abundance of the kongo
basin the machinery was already per-
fected in Belgian hands. and especially
in the kings, to assume the task-and
the profits-of developing the region.
For some years the great powers looked
greedily at the prize. but their fears and
jealousies rendered them impOtent. Leo
pold had shrewdly figured upon this. The
guaranteed neutrality-to assume the tu-
telage of a new state, which was to be
kept neutral and free to the commerce
OF all the world, were automatically
urged. One power after another gave as
sent, the United States one Of the last,
and in November 1884, the congress of
Berlin assembled to crown, the hopes or
the willy speculative monarch. The Free
State was erected by act Of the congress
February 20, 1885, and that extraordi-
nary history of headlong development,
consummate exploitation and unspeak-
able cruelty began to which fms has not
been written yet.
Mark Twain's Epigram.
In December, 1905. Mark Twain gave
utterance to a savage epigram. Beside
Leopold" said he, Nero, Caligula, At
tia, Torquemada. Genghis Khan and
such killers OF men are mere amateurs"
He went on to give an estimate OF TO-
coo 600 human beings slaughtered in the
conduct Of the rubber and ivory trade of
the Kongo.
The papers at that time, as they have
been since, were full of KOngo horrors.
| d
as the collection of taxes In kind, which
exacted so much Of the natives labor
that they starved by the villageful from
inability to raise food. There were the
stories of shooting. fogging. mutilation
with pictures. Allowing every discount
for exaggeration, it cannot be doubted
that conditions of atrocity existed sucn
as the world has never seen surpassed.
But to what extent was Leopold re-
sponsible for these denominations? Prob
ably not at all, directly. Arguing from
his rule in Belgium. 1t is fair to think
that he would have much preferred
regime OF justice. humanity and progress
in his big African farm. But 1t cannot
be denied that he remand callous to the
conditions that actually prevailed. he
shut his ears to the cry Of the Bantus'
blood and his eyes to the evidence pre-
scented by missionaries and travellers
even by some Of his own officials Mark
Twain summed up his position by point
ing out that the kings incentive to
wholesale murder, or at least to blinking
at 1t, was the increase in his profits. So
long as these poured In he was blindly
satisfied and would not interfere
Besides, there were always counter
vailing facts to lay before Europe-the
alleged suppression OF the real slave
trade. the opening of the country to mis-
sionaries of all religions. works for SAM
tatfOn and education (real or Imaginary,