The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

That we are loth to impose upon the President of the United States considerations which are foreign to the interests of his Government. But inasmuch as certain persons are conducting within the United States a movement to involve the Government of the United States in the consideration of their unfounded charges and interested misrepresentations against the Government of the Congo Free State, we feel it our duty to present a brief statement of the objects of the Congo Government to the President of a friendly Power in order that the unjust methods being employed by the enemies of the Congo Free State may not mislead the President to encourage Congressional action prejudicial to our interests before we shall have been fully heard.

Christian Child, New Antwerp (Bangala).

Fetich-Idol, Lower Congo.

Our Association has been formed for the defence of Belgian interests and possessions abroad. Our people esteem and admire the people of the United States and we have great respect for their President. The Belgians desire that they shall not be slandered and vilified in the midst of the American people. They feel it their duty to assist the American people to a proper understanding of the lofty purposes which actuate the Government of the Congo Free State. In this connection the Belgians recall with pleasure and with pride the fact that the Government of the United States was the first great nation to recognise the flag of the International Association of the Congo as that of an independent State. By its treaties and by its adherence to the Berlin and Brussels Acts it promised liberty of trade in its part of the Congo Basin, and it respectfully asserts that it has fulfilled that promise in spirit and to the letter in so far as the short term of its existence in a savage country has enabled it to establish an organisation which, by its prosperity and progress, now excites the envy of those who seek to disrupt it.

The principles which actuate the Congo Government are tersely set out in an essay written by a highly qualified American citizen, which is herewith enclosed. We humbly beg the President of the United States to honour us by perusing this concise exposition of the fundamental principles which underlie, and which have given such progressive momentum to, the Government of the Congo Free State.

The principles of the Congo Government are devoted to progress and civilisation. The State’s motto is “Work and Progress.” We have always felt that to intelligently follow that motto was to firmly establish in the midst of conditions of savagery the habit of industry and a respect for property as well as for life, according to the universal law of nations.

Concerning the term “Freedom of Commerce,” which Congo enemies are interpreting to mean ungoverned license, we beg to refer the President to the laws of the United States and penalties concerning trespass upon and pillage of public lands and their product. Perhaps no nation in the world has so precisely developed the law of private and public property, nor administered it with finer understanding of the principles of equity and justice, than the United States. The Congo law relating to property is in consonance with the law of the world’s greatest nations. The great success which has been attained by the Congo Government for the betterment of its native inhabitants by the operation of this law, and the order which exists thereunder, has excited the envy and the avarice of those whose ulterior motive is being cloaked in the garb of humanitarianism and questionable philanthropy. On the one hand it is charged that the Congo Government by its method seeks to enslave the native in order that he may serve it with his hands for the benefit of interests whose welfare he does not share. On the other hand, the libellers of the Congo wilfully utter not only the unfounded accusation but the inconsistent charge, that the Government cuts off the hand whose work it seeks to enslave. Concerning the untruthful character of the testimony in this respect which has been published against the Congo by the promoters of the so-called “Congo Reform Association” of Liverpool, we beg to refer your Excellency to the great mass of genuine and reliable evidence by Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Americans, Italians, and Belgians in direct contradiction of the falsehoods which form the traffic of the Association, whose leading spirit has never been near the Congo nor the natives who form the pretext of his search for personal notoriety and aggrandisement.

We also call your Excellency’s attention to the fact that the Congo Government, when assailed by missionaries at all, is assailed by a few individual missionaries operating in conjunction with the Liverpool Association, whose object we shall in due course expose. The Congo Government has not been assailed by other missionaries at all. The Catholic missionaries are in reality all seeking the moral, spiritual, and intellectual betterment of the native races, while those of a material faith, who have sought from the Congo Government and been denied personal concessions of material value solely, are secretly working in directions entirely unconnected with the spiritual and moral welfare of the Congo population. In due time and in the proper place the Government of the Congo Free State will produce its testimony bearing upon this phase of the campaign begun in England, and now carried to the United States, against an undertaking which within twenty years has done more to promote civilisation than was ever before attempted in all the great continent of Africa.