lgian Congo--the first actual signboard of the least known and
most picturesque piece of American financial venturing abroad. It has
helped to redeem a vast region from barbarism and opened up an area of
far-reaching economic significance. At Djoko Punda you enter the domain
of the Forminiere, the corporation founded by a monarch and which has a
kingdom for a partner. Woven into its story is the romance of a one-time
barefoot Virginia boy who became the commercial associate of a king.

What is the Forminiere and what does it do? The name is a contraction of
Societe Internationale Forestiere & Miniere du Congo. In the Congo,
where companies have long titles, it is the fashion to reduce them to
the dimensions of a cable code-word. Thus the high-sounding Compagnie
Industrielle pour les Transports et Commerce au Stanley Pool is
mercifully shaved to "Citas." This information, let me say, is a
life-saver for the alien with a limited knowledge of French and whose
pronunciation is worse.

Clearly to understand the scope and purpose of the Forminiere you must
know that it is one of the three companies that have helped to shape the
destiny of the Congo. I encountered the first--the Union Miniere--the
moment I entered the Katanga. The second is the Huileries du Congo
Belge, the palm-oil producers whose bailiwick abuts upon the Congo and
Kwilu Rivers. Now we come to the third and the most important agency, so
far as American interest is affected, in the Forminiere, whose empire is
the immense section watered by the Kasai River and which extends across
the border into Angola. In the Union Miniere you got the initial hint of
America's part in the development of the Congo. That part, however, was
entirely technical. With the Forminiere you have the combination of
American capital and American engineering in an achievement that is, to
say the least, unusual.

The moment I dipped into Congo business history I touched the Forminiere
for the reason that it was the pet project of King Leopold, and the last
and favorite corporate child of his economic statesmanship. Moreover,
among the leading Belgian capitalists interested were men who had been
Stanley's comrades and who had helped to blaze the path of civilization
through the wilds. King Albert spoke of it to me in terms of
appreciation and more especially of the American end. I felt a sense of
pride in the financial courage and physical hardihood of my countrymen
who had gone so far af