Long before the Forminiere came into being, the Société Generale was the chief financial factor in the Congo. With the exception of the Huileries du Congo Belge, which is British, it either dominates or has large holdings in every one of the sixteen major corporations doing business in the Colony and whose combined total capitalization is more than 200,000,000 francs. This means that it controls railways and river transport, and the cotton, gold, rubber, ivory and diamond output.
The custodians of this far-flung financial power are the money kings of Belgium. Chief among them is Jean Jadot, Governor of the Société Generale—the institution still designates its head by this ancient title—and President of the Forminiere. In him and his colleagues you find those elements of self-made success so dear to the heart of the human interest historian. It would be difficult to find anywhere a more picturesque group of men than those who, through their association with King Leopold and the Société, have developed the Congo and so many other enterprises.
Jadot occupies today the same position in Belgium that the late J. P. Morgan held in his prime in America. He is the foremost capitalist. Across the broad, flat-topped desk of his office in that marble palace in the Rue Royale the tides of Belgian finance ebb and flow. Just as Morgan's name made an underwriting in New York so does Jadot's put the stamp of authority on it in Brussels. Morgan inherited a great name and a fortune. Jadot made his name and his millions.
When you analyze the lives of American multi-millionaires you find a curious repetition of history. Men like John D. Rockefeller, Henry H. Rogers, Thomas F. Ryan, and Russell Sage began as grocery clerks in small towns. Something in the atmosphere created by spice and sugar must have developed the money-making germ. With the plutocrats of Belgium it was different. Practically all of them, and especially those who ruled the financial institutions, began as explorers or engineers. This shows the intimate connection that exists between Belgium and her overseas interests.
Jadot is a good illustration. At twenty he graduated as engineer from Louvain University. At thirty-five he had directed the construction of the tramways of Cairo and of the Lower Egyptian Railways. He was now caught up in Leopold's great dream of Belgian expansion. The moment that the king obtained the concession for constructing the 1,200 mile railway from Pekin to Hankow he sent Jadot to China to take charge. Within eight years he completed this task in the face of almost insuperable difficulties, including a Boxer uprising, which cost the lives of some of his colleagues and tested his every resource.
In 1905 he entered the Société Generale. At once he became fired with Leopold's enthusiasm for the Congo and the necessity for making it an outlet for Belgium. Jadot was instrumental in organizing the Union Miniere and was also the compelling force behind the building of the Katanga Railway. In 1912 he became Vice Governor of the Société and the following year assumed the Governorship. In addition to being President of the Forminiere he is also head of the Union Miniere and of the new railroad which is to connect the Katanga with the Lower Congo.
When you meet Jadot you are face to face with a human organization tingling with nervous vitality. He reminds me more of E. H. Harriman than of any other American empire builder that I have met, and like Harriman he seems to be incessantly bound up to the telephone. He is keen, quick, and forceful and talks as rapidly as he thinks. Almost slight of body, he at first gives the impression of being a student for his eyes are deep and thoughtful. There is nothing meditative in his manner, however, for he is a live wire in the fullest American sense. Every time I talked with him I went away with a new wonder at his stock of world information. Men of the Jadot type never climb to the heights they attain without a reason. In his case it is first and foremost an accurate knowledge of every undertaking. He never goes into a project without first knowing all about it—a helpful rule, by the way, that the average person may well observe in the employment of his money.
If Jadot is a live wire, then his confrere, Emile Francqui, is a whole battery. Here you touch the most romantic and many-sided career in all Belgian financial history. It reads like a melodrama and is packed with action and adventure. I could almost write a book about any one of its many stirring phases.
At fourteen Francqui was a penniless orphan. He worked his way through a regimental school and at twenty was commissioned a sub-lieutenant. It was 1885 and the Congo Free State had just been launched. Having studied engineering he was sent out at once to Boma to join the Topographic Brigade. During this first stay in the Congo he was in charge of a boat-load of workmen engaged in wharf construction. The captain of a British gunboat hailed him and demanded that he stop. Francqui replied,
"If you try to stop me I will lash my boat to yours and destroy it with dynamite." He had no further trouble.