The Other Teddy Roosevelts (17 page)

“Then start passing the word as soon as we get back,” said Roosevelt. Suddenly he frowned. “That’s funny.”

“What is, sir?”

“I felt very dizzy for just a moment there.” He shrugged. “I’m sure it will pass.”

But it didn’t, and that night the ex-President came down with malaria. Boyes tended to him and nursed him back to health, but another week had been wasted, and Roosevelt had the distinct feeling that he didn’t have too many of them left to put the country on the right track.

***

“Ah, my friend Johnny—and King Teddy!” Matapoli greeted them with a huge smile of welcome. “You honor my village with your presence.”

“Your village has changed since the last time we were here,” noted Boyes wryly.

Matapoli pointed proudly to the five railroad coach cars that his men had dragged miles through the bush over a period of months, and which now housed his immediate family and the families of four of the tribe’s elders.

“Oh, yes,” he said happily. “King Teddy promised us democracy, and he kept his promise.” He pointed to one of the cars. “
My
democracy is the finest of all! Come join me inside it.”

Roosevelt and Boyes exchanged ironic glances and followed Matapoli into the coach car, which was filled with some twenty or so of his children.

“King Teddy has returned!” enthused the Mangbetu chief. “We must have a hunt in the forest and have a feast in your honor.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Matapoli,” said Roosevelt. “But it has been many months since we last saw each other. Let us talk together first.”

“Yes, that would be very good,” agreed Matapoli, puffing out his chest as the children recognized the two visitors and raced off to inform the rest of the village.

“Just how many children do you have?” asked Roosevelt.

Matapoli paused in thought for a moment. “Ten, and ten more, and then seven,” he answered.

“And how many wives?”

“Five.”

The puritanical American tried without success to hide his disapproval. “That’s a very large family, Matapoli.”

“Should be more, should be more,” admitted the Mangbetu. “But it took many months to bring the democracies here.”

“Had you left them on the track, you could have traveled all across the country on them,” Boyes pointed out.

Matapoli threw back his head and laughed. “Why should I want to go to Lulua or Bwaka country?” he asked. “They would just kill me and take my democracies for themselves.”

“Please try to understand, Matapoli,” said Roosevelt. “There are no longer Mangbetu or Lulua or Bwaka countries. There is just the Congo Free State, and you all live in it.”

“You are king of all the countries, King Teddy,” answered Matapoli. “You need have no fear. If the Bwaka say that you are not, then we shall kill them.”

Roosevelt spent the next ten minutes trying to explain the Congo Free State to Matapoli, who was no closer to comprehending it at the end of the discussion than at the beginning.

“All right,” said the American with a sigh of resignation. “Let’s get back to talking about the trains.”

“Trains?” repeated Matapoli.

“The democracies, and the steel logs they rolled upon,” interjected Boyes.

“Another gift from King Teddy,” said Matapoli enthusiastically. “No longer can the leopards and the hyenas break through the thorns and kill my cattle. Now I use the metal thorns, and my animals are safe.”

“The metal thorns were built so that you and the other Mangbetu could travel many miles without having to walk,” said Roosevelt.

“Why should we wish to go many miles?” asked Matapoli, honestly puzzled. “The river runs beside the village, and the forest and its game are just a short walk away.”

“You might wish to visit another tribe.”

Matapoli smiled. “How could we sneak up on our enemies in the democracies? They are too large, and they would make too much noise when they rolled upon the iron thorns.” He shook his head. “No, King Teddy, they are much better right here, where we can put them to use.”

Long after the feast was over and Roosevelt and Boyes were riding their horses back toward Stanleyville, Roosevelt, who had been replaying the frustrating day over and over in his mind, finally sighed and muttered: “By God, that probably
is
the best use they could have been put to!”

Boyes found the remark highly amusing, and burst into laughter. A moment later Roosevelt joined him with a hearty laugh of his own, and that was the official end of the Trans-Congo Railway.

***

They came to a newly-paved road when they were fifteen miles out of Stanleyville and, glad to finally be free of the bush and the forest, they veered their mounts onto it. As they continued their journey, they passed dozens of men and women walking alongside the road.

“Why don’t they walk
on
it, John?” asked Roosevelt curiously. “There can’t be fifteen trucks in the whole of the Congo. Until we import some more, we might as well put the roads to some use.”

“They’re barefoot,” Boyes pointed out.

“So what? The road is a lot smoother than the rocks alongside it.”

“It’s also a lot hotter,” answered Boyes. “By high noon you could fry an egg on it.”

“You mean we’ve spent a million dollars on roads for which there not only aren’t any cars and trucks, but that the people can’t even walk on?”

“This isn’t America, sir.”

“A point that is being driven home daily,” muttered Roosevelt wearily.

11

Roosevelt sat at his desk, staring at a number of letters and documents that lay stacked neatly in front of him. To his left was a photograph of Edith and his children, to his right a picture of himself delivering a State of the Union address to the United States Congress, and behind him, on an ornate brass stand, was the flag of the Congo Free State.

Finally, with a sigh, he opened the final letter, read it quickly, and, frowning, placed it atop the stack.

“Bad news, Mr. President?” asked Boyes, who was sitting in the leather chair on the opposite side of the desk.

“No worse than the rest of them,” answered Roosevelt. “That was from Mr. Bennigan, our chief engineer on the Stanley Falls Bridge. He sends his regrets, but his men haven’t been paid in three weeks, and he’s going to have to pull out.” He stared at the letter. “There’s no postmark, of course, but I would guess that it took at least two weeks to get here.”

“We didn’t need him anyway,” said Boyes, dismissing the matter with a shrug. “What’s the sense of building a bridge over the falls if we don’t have any trains or cars?”

“Because someday we’ll have them, John, and when we do, they’re going to need roads and tracks and bridges.”

“When that happy day arrives, I’m sure we’ll have enough money to complete work on the bridge,” replied Boyes.

Roosevelt sighed. “It’s not as devastating a blow as losing the teachers. How many of them have left?”

“Just about all.”

“Damn!” muttered Roosevelt. “How can we educate the populace if there’s no one to teach them?”

“With all due respect, sir, they don’t need Western educations,” said Boyes. “You’re trying to turn them into Americans, and they’re not. Reading and writing are no more important to them than railroads are.”

Roosevelt stared at him for a long moment. “What do
you
think is important to them, John?”

“You’re talking about a primitive society,” answered Boyes. “They need to learn crop rotation and hygiene and basic medicine far more than they need roads that they’ll never use and railroad cars that they think are simply huts on wheels.”

“You’re wrong, John,” said Roosevelt adamantly. “A little black African baby is no different than a little black American baby—or a little white American baby, for that matter. If we can get them young enough, and educate them thoroughly enough…”

“I don’t like to contradict you, sir,” interrupted Boyes, “but you’re wrong. What’s the point of having ten thousand college graduates if they all have to go home to their huts every night because there aren’t two hundred jobs for educated men in the whole country? If you want to have a revolution on your hands, raise their expectations, prepare them to live and function in London or New York—and then make them stay in the Congo.”

Roosevelt shook his head vigorously. “If we did things your way, these people would stay in ignorance and poverty forever. I told you when we began this enterprise that I wasn’t coming here to turn the Congo into my private hunting preserve.” He paused. “I haven’t found the key yet, but if anyone can bring the Congo into the 20th Century, I can.”

“Has it occurred to you that perhaps no one can?” suggested Boyes gently.

“Not for a moment,” responded Roosevelt firmly.

“I’ll stay as long as you do, sir,” said Boyes. “You know that. But if you don’t come up with some answers pretty soon, we may be the last two white men in this country, except for the missionaries and some of the Belgian planters who stayed behind. Almost half our original party has already left.”

“They were just here for ivory or adventure,” said Roosevelt dismissively. “We need people who care about this country more than we need people who are here merely to plunder it.” Suddenly he stared out the window at some fixed point in space.

“Are you all right, sir?” asked Boyes after Roosevelt had remained motionless for almost a minute.

“Never better,” answered the American suddenly. “You know, John, I see now that I’ve been going about this the wrong way. No one cares as much for the future of the Congo as the people themselves. I was wrong to try to bring in help from outside; in the long run, any progress we make here will be much more meaningful if it’s accomplished by our own efforts.”

“Ours?” repeated Boyes, puzzled. “You mean yours and mine?”

“I mean the citizens of the Congo Free State,” answered Roosevelt. “I’ve been telling you and the engineers and the teachers and the missionaries what they need. I think it’s about time I told the people and rallied them to their own cause.”

“We’ve already promised them democracy,” said Boyes. “And there’s at least one Mangbetu village that will swear we delivered it to them,” he added with a smile.

“Those were politicians’ promises, designed to get our foot in the door,” said Roosevelt. “Democracy may be a right, but it isn’t a gift. It requires effort and sacrifice. They’ve got to understand that.”

“First they’ve got to understand what democracy means.”

“They will, once I’ve explained it to them,” answered Roosevelt.

“You mean in person?” asked Boyes.

“That’s right,” said Roosevelt. “I’ll start in the eastern section of the country, now that my Swahili has become fluent, and as I move west I’ll use translators. But I’m going to go out among the people myself. I’m certainly not doing any good sitting here in Stanleyville; it’s time to go out on the stump and get my message across to the only people who really need to understand it.” He paused. “I’d love to have your company, John, but there are so few of us left that I think it would be better for you to remain here and keep an eye on things.”

“Whatever you say, Mr. President,” replied Boyes. “When will you leave?”

“Tomorrow,” said Roosevelt. He paused. “No. This afternoon. There’s nothing more important to do, and we’ve no time to waste.”

***

He went among the people for five weeks, and everywhere he stopped, the drums had anticipated his arrival and the tribes flocked to see him.

He took his time, avoided any hint of jingoism, and carefully explained the principles of democracy to them. He pointed out the necessity of education, the importance of modern farming methods, the need to end all forms of tribalism, and the advantages of a monied economy. At the end of each “town meeting”, as he called them, he held a prolonged question-and-answer session, and then he moved on to the next major village and repeated the entire procedure again.

During the morning of his thirty-sixth day on the stump, he was joined by Yank Rogers, who rode down from Stanleyville to see him.

“Hello, Yank!” cried Roosevelt enthusiastically as he saw the American riding up to his tent, which had been pitched just outside of a Lulua village.

“Hi, Teddy,” said Rogers, pulling up his horse and dismounting. “You’re looking good. Getting out in the bush seems to agree with you.”

“I feel as fit as a bull moose,” replied Roosevelt with a smile. “How’s John doing?”

“Getting rich, as usual,” said Rogers, not without a hint of admiration for the enterprising Yorkshireman. “I thought he was going to be stuck with about a million pounds of flour when all the construction people pulled out, but he heard that there was a famine in Portugese Angola, so he traded the flour for ivory, and then had Buckley and the Brittlebanks brothers cart it to Mombasa when they decided to call it quits, in exchange for half the profits.”

“That sounds like John, all right,” agreed Roosevelt. “I’m sorry to hear that we’ve lost Buckley and the others, though.”

Rogers shrugged. “They’re just Brits. What the hell do they know about democracy? They’d slit your throat in two seconds flat if someone told them that it would get ‘em an audience with the King.” He paused. “All except Boyes, anyway. He’d find some way to put the King on display and charge money for it.”

Roosevelt chuckled heartily. “You know, I do believe you’re right.”

“So much for Mr. Boyes,” said Rogers, “How’s your campaign going?”

“Just bully,” answered Roosevelt. “The response has been wildly enthusiastic.” He paused. “I’m surprised news of it hasn’t reached you.”

“How could it?” asked Rogers. “There aren’t any radios or newspapers—and even if there were, these people speak 300 different languages and none of ‘em can read or write.”

“Still,” said Roosevelt, “I’ve made a start.”

“I don’t doubt it, sir.”

“I’m drawing almost five hundred natives a day,” continued Roosevelt. “That’s more than 15,000 converts in just over a month.”

“If they stay converted.”

“They will.”

“Just another six million to go,” said Rogers with a chuckle.