Items of Interest March 10, 1906 Issue

Items of Interest

Secretary Root, in a letter to Representative Denby of Michigan, relative to the desire to have certain alleged abuses in the Congo Free State corrected by some international action, says, —

"The United States has no treaty right of intervention. We could not rightfully summon or participate in any international conference looking to intervention, adjudication, or enforcement of a general accord by other foreign Powers against the Congo Free State. Moreover, we are without opportunity or power to investigate conditions in the Congo. We have no diplomatic or consular representatives in that country. We could not send any one there except with the consent of the Government of the Congo— to do otherwise would be an invasion of its sovereignty. Other Powers, being parties to the general act of Berlin, have made investigations through their authorized representives, and the Congo Government also has sent investigating commissions. The information we have on the subject of Congo misrule comes at second hand through opposed channels.

"I most sincerely wish that some way could be found by which the whole of Central Africa could be rightly administered by the several Powers ruling or exercising a controlling influence therein, so as to realize the intention of those Powers when they framed the general act of the Congo. Much may be and doubtless is desirable in the way of good government in that vast region elsewhere than in the Congo."

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"As a man thinketh"
March 10, 1906
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