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.”