Page images
PDF
EPUB

the law should say to him, not: "We will strip you of your possessions without price;" but "with a price that is fair, we will give them to the tillers of the soil."

I was the other day-three weeks ago-in an Irish city; and as I was passing along the street, I saw on the lintel of a door the emblems of mourning. There came out two solemn-looking persons whom I judged from their conversation to be the doctor and his assistant. They walked along seeming to feel very bad over the misfortune that had befallen the family or the falling off of their revenues, but when they reached the opposite corner of the street, they turned, and one said to the other: "Mr. O'Flyn, we did the best we could." "Yes," says he, "Mr. O'Brien, and it was a melancholy pleasure." Now I have attended a great many funerals in my life; and I expect to attend a great many more; and there are many obsequies to which I go which afford me a melancholy pleasure. I feel melancholy in outward aspect out of respect to my surroundings, and have great pleasure in the event; and the funeral of the passion and the prejudice of England, which for ages have cursed Ireland, I shall attend with a melancholy pleasure.

The difficulty about Ireland and the United States is, that while the Americans have talked-as we all have to talk upon the stump and platform, some of us for votes, and some of us because we feel it, about the rights and wrongs of Ireland-the difficulty with us has always been that we did not know what Irishmen wanted. We have reached an age when sentiment is gone. We are no longer a sentimental people. We have come to a period when passion can no longer be torn to tatters, unless there is a foundation for the cloth. When we believe a people to be suffering from tyranny and injustice, then we can be full of sentiment in our sympathies, and intensely practical in our assistance. In the divided councils of the past we could not learn what the Irish wanted for Ireland, but the full lesson has been taught us by the same great leader who has consolidated the opinions and the purposes of his countrymen-Charles Stewart Parnell.

I doubt if the justice and strength of Mr. Parnell's position would have been so thoroughly understood, and so unanimously approved, by the American people, except for the conversion and resistless advocacy of an English statesman who has for years held the first place in our admiration and respect. Americans recognize genius everywhere, and neither race nor nationality is a barrier to their appreciation and applause. Beyond all other men in the Old World, one Englishman of supreme ability, of marvelous eloquence, and varied acquirements, has fired their imaginations and enthusiasm-William E. Gladstone.

During the fifty years he has been ir public life, there have been other

English statesmen as accomplished and eminent in many departments of activity and thought; many whose home and foreign policies have received equal, if not greater, approval from their contemporaries; two hundred years from now none of them will be remembered but Gladstone. His fame will rest upon the great achievement of having saved the Empire he loved from a policy based upon ignorance and prejudice which would have destroyed it, and the greater triumph of having liberated a noble people, for centuries oppressed, who will forever keep his name alive with their gratitude.

§ 55

THE TYPICAL DUTCHMAN

By Henry Van Dyke

(Speech at the fifth annual banquet of the Holland Society of New York, January 10, 1890.)

MR. PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF THE HOLLAND SOCIETY: Who is the typical Dutchman? Rembrandt, the splendid artist; Erasmus, the brilliant scholar; Coster, the inventor of printing; Leuwenhoek, the profound scientist; Grotius, the great lawyer; Barendz, the daring explorer; De Witt, the skilful statesman; Van Tromp, the trump of admirals; William the Silent, heroic defender of liberty against a world of tyranny; William III., the emancipator of England, whose firm, peaceful hand, just two centuries ago, set the Anglo-Saxon race free to fulfil its mighty destiny-what hero, artist, philosopher, discoverer, lawgiver, admiral, general or monarch shall we choose from the long list of Holland's illustrious dead to stand as the typical Dutchman?

Nay, not one of these men, famous as they were, can fill the pedestal of honor to-night. For though their glorious achievements have lent an undying luster to the name of Holland, the qualities that really created her and made her great, lifted her in triumph from the sullen sea, massed her inhabitants like a living bulwark against oppression, filled her cities with the light of learning and her homes with the arts of peace, covered the ocean with her ships and the islands with her colonies the qualities that made Holland great were the qualities of the comHENRY VAN DYKE. Born Germantown, Pa., November 10, 1852; graduated from Princeton in 1873; Princeton Theological Seminary, 1877; ordained Presbyterian minister, 1879; pastor United Congregational Church, Newport, R. I., 1879-82; and the Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, 1883-1900; Professor of English Literature, Princeton University, since 1900; United States Minister to the Netherlands, 1913-1917.

mon people. The ideal character of the Dutch race is not an exceptiona! genius, but a plain, brave, straightforward, kind-hearted, liberty-loving, law-abiding citizen-a man with a healthy conscience, a good digestion, and a cheerful determination to do his duty in the sphere of life to which God has called him. [Applause.] Let me try to etch the portrait of such a man in few and simple lines. Grant me but six strokes for

the picture.

The typical Dutchman is an honest man, and that's the noblest work of God. Physically he may be-and if he attends these dinners he probably will be-more or less round. But morally he must be square. And surely in this age of sham, when there is so much plated ware that passes itself off for solid silver, and so much work done at half measure and charged at full price-so many doctors who buy diplomas, and lawyers whose names should be "Necessity," because they know no law [laughter and applause], and preachers who insist on keeping in their creeds doctrines which they do not profess to believe-surely in this age, in which skyrockets are so plentiful and well-seasoned firewood is so scarce, the man who is most needed is not the genius, the discoverer, the brilliant sayer of new things, but simply the honest man, who speaks the truth, pays his debts, does his work thoroughly, and is satisfied with what he has earned. [Applause.]

The typical Dutchman is a free man. Liberty is his passion; and has been since the days of Leyden and Alkmaar. It runs in the blood. A descendant of the old Batavian who fought against Rome is bound to be free at any cost: he hates tyranny in every form. [Applause.]

"I honor the man who is ready to sink

Half his present repute for the freedom to think;
And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will sink t'other half for the freedom to speak,
Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store,
Let that mob be the upper ten thousand, or lower." 1

That is the spirit of the typical Dutchman. Never has it been more needed than it is to-day; to guard our land against the oppression of the plutocrat on the one hand, and the demagogue on the other hand; to prevent a government of the parties by the bosses for the spoils, and to preserve a government of the people, by the people, for the people. [Renewed applause.]

The typical Dutchman is a prudent man. He will be free to choose for himself; but he generally chooses to do nothing rash. He does mt admire those movements which are like the Chinaman's description of 'James Russell Lowell.

the toboggan-slide, "Whiz! Walk a mile!" He prefers a one-story ground-rent to a twelve-story mortgage with an elevator. [Laughter.] He has a constitutional aversion to unnecessary risks. In society, in philosophy, in commerce, he sticks to the old way until he knows that the new one is better. On the train of progress he usually sits in the middle car, sometimes in the smoker, but never on the cow-catcher. [Laughter.] And yet he arrives at his destination all the same. [Renewed laughter.]

The typical Dutchman is a devout man. He could not respect himself if he did not reverence God. [Applause.] Religion was at the center of Holland's most glorious life, and it is impossible to understand the sturdy heroism and cheerful industry of our Dutch forefathers without remembering that whether they ate or drank or labored or prayed or fought or sailed or farmed, they did all to the glory of God. [Applause.] The only difference between New Amsterdam and New England was this: The Puritans founded a religious community with commercial principles; the Dutchman founded a commercial community with religious principles. [Laughter.] Which was the better I do not but everyone knows which was the happier to live in.

say;

The typical Dutchman is a liberal man. He believes, but he does not persecute. He says, in the immortal words of William III., "Conscience is God's province." So it came to pass that New Amsterdam became an asylum for the oppressed in the New World, as Old Amsterdam had been in the Old World. No witches burned; no Quakers flogged; peace and fair chances for everybody; love God as much as you can, and don't forget to love your neighbor as yourself. How excellent the character in which piety and charity are joined! While I have been speaking you have been thinking of one who showed us the harmony of such a character in his living presence-Judge Hooper C. Van Vorst, the first President of the Holland Society-an honest lawyer, an upright judge, a prudent counselor, a sincere Christian, a genial companion. While such a man lives his fellowship is a blessing, and when he dies his memory is sacred. [Applause.]

But one more stroke remains to be added to the picture. The typical Dutchman is a man of few words. Perhaps I ought to say he was: for in this talkative age, even in The Holland Society, a degenerate speaker will forget himself so far as not to keep silence when he talks about the typical Dutchman. [Laughter.] But those old companions who came to this country previous to the year 1675, as Dutch citizens, under the Dutch flag, and holding their tongues in the Dutch language,-ah, they understood their business. Their motto was facta non verba. They are the men we praise to-night in our:

SONG OF THE TYPICAL DUTCHMAN.

They sailed from the shores of the Zuider Zee Across the stormy ocean,

To build for the world a new country

According to their notion;

A land where thought should be free as air,
And speech be free as water;

Where man to man should be just and fair,
And Law be Liberty's daughter.

They were brave and kind,

And of simple mind,

And the world has need of such men;
So we say with pride,

(On the father's side),

That they were typical Dutchmen.

They bought their land in an honest way,

For the red man was their neighbor;

They farmed it well, and made it pay
By the increment of labor.

They ate their bread in the sweat o' their brow,
And smoked their pipes at leisure;
For they said then, as we say now,
That the fruit of toil is pleasure.
When their work was done,
They had their fun,

And the world has need of such men;
So we say with pride,

(On the father's side),

That they were typical Dutchmen.

They held their faith without offense,

And said their prayers on Sunday;

But they never could see a bit of sense
In burning a witch on Monday.

They loved their God with a love so true,

And with a head so level,

That they could afford to love men too,

And not be afraid of the devil.

They kept their creed

In word and deed,

And the world has need of such men;

So we say with pride,

(On the father's side),

That they were typical Dutchmen.

« PreviousContinue »