on Pacific System was the apple of E. H. Harriman's eye, and
the New York Central was a Vanderbilt fetish for decades. So with Ryan
and the Congo. Other powerful Americans have become associated with him,
as you will see later on, but it was the tall, alert, clear-eyed
Virginian, who rose from penniless clerk to be a Wall Street king, who
first had the vision on this side of the Atlantic, and backed it with
his millions. I am certain that if Ryan had gone into the Congo earlier
and had not been engrossed in his American interests, he would probably
have done for the whole of Central Africa what Rhodes did for South
Africa.

We can now get at the beginnings of the Forminiere. Most large
corporations radiate from a lawyer's office. With the Forminiere it was
otherwise. The center of inspiration was the stone palace at Brussels
where King Leopold II, King of the Belgians, held forth. The year 1906
was not a particularly happy one for him. The atrocity campaign was at
its height abroad and the Socialists were pounding him at home.
Despite the storm of controversy that raged about him one clear idea
shone amid the encircling gloom. That idea was to bulwark the Congo Free
State, of which he was also sovereign, before it was ceded to Belgium.

[Illustration: THOMAS F. RYAN]

Between 1879 and 1890 Leopold personally supported the cost of creating
and maintaining the Free State. It represented an outlay of more than
$2,500,000. Afterwards he had adequate return in the revenues from
rubber and ivory. But Leopold was a royal spender in the fullest sense.
He had a variety of fads that ranged from youthful and beguiling
femininity to the building of palaces and the beautifying of his own
country. He lavished millions on making Brussels a sumptuous capital and
Ostend an elaborate seaside resort. With his private life we are not
concerned. Leopold the pleasure-seeker was one person; Leopold the
business man was another, and as such he was unique among the rulers of
Europe.

Leopold contradicted every known tradition of royalty. The king business
is usually the business of spending unearned money. Your royal
spendthrift is a much more familiar figure than the royal miser.
Moreover, nobody ever associates productive power with a king save in
the big family line. His task is inherited and with it a bank account
sufficient to meet all needs. This immunity from economic necessity is a
large price to pay for lack of liberty in speech an