the Congo from under the very eyes and hands of
Germany. I quote this episode to show that when it came to business
Leopold made every king in Europe look like an office boy. Even so
masterful a manipulator of men as Cecil Rhodes failed with him. Rhodes
sought his aid in his trans-African telegraph scheme but Leopold was too
shrewd for him. After his first audience with the Belgian king Rhodes
said to Robert Williams, "I thought I was clever but I was no match for
him."

The only other modern king interested in business was the former Kaiser,
Mr. Wilhelm Hohenzollern. Although he has no business sense in the way
that Leopold had it, he always had a keen appreciation of big business
as an imperial prop. Like Leopold, he had a congested country and
realized that permanent expansion lay in colonization. The commercial
magnates of Germany used him for their own ends but their teamwork
advanced the whole empire. Wilhelm was a silent partner in the potash,
shipping, and electric-machinery trusts. He earned whatever he received
because he was in every sense an exalted press-agent,--a sort of
glorified publicity promoter. His strong point was to go about
proclaiming the merits of German wares and he always made it a point to
scatter samples. On a visit to Italy he left behind a considerable
quantity of soap. There was a great rush to get these royal left-overs.
Two weeks later a small army of German soap salesmen descended upon the
country selling this identical product.

Whatever may be said of Leopold, one thing is certain. He was not small.
Wilhelm used the brains of other men; Leopold employed his own, and
every capitalist who went up against him paid tribute to this asset.

We can now go back to 1906, the year that was to mark the advent of
America into the Congo. Leopold knew that the days of the Congo as a
Free State were numbered. His personally-conducted stewardship of the
Colony was being assailed by the Socialists on one hand and the atrocity
proclaimers on the other. Leopold was undoubtedly sincere in his desire
to economically safeguard the African possession before it passed out of
his control. In any event, during the summer of that year he sent a
message to Ryan asking him to confer with him at Brussels. The summons
came out of a clear sky and at first the American financier paid no
attention to it. He was then on a holiday in Switzerland. When a second
invitation came from the king, he accepted, and in Septe