The Crime of the Congo

“There are many of us in England who consi­der the crime which has been wrought in the Con­go lands by King Leopold of Belgium and his fol­lowers to be the greatest which has ever been known in human annals. Personally I am strong­ly of that opinion. There have been great exprop­riations like that of the Normans in England or of the English in Ireland. There have been massac­res of populations like that of the South Ameri­cans by the Spaniards or of subject nations by the Turks. But never before has there been such a mixture of wholesale expropriation and whole­sale massacre all done under an odious guise of philanthropy and with the lowest commercial motives as a reason. It is this sordid cause and the unctious hypoc­risy which makes this crime unparalleled in its horror.”