The National tribune., 1906-04-19
THE GREAT DUTCH.
Solid Men Who Are Pillars of the Coun-
try's Greatness and Glory.

Solid Men Who Are Pillars of the Coun-
try's Greatness and Glory.
Response by John McElroy to toast
at the Paas Feast of the st. Nicholas
Society. New York, April 16, 1906.
Mr.. Toastmaster and Gentlemen:
never use that phrase but there comes
warningly before me one of Du Maui
rier's pictures. y man rising to speak
begins:
'Sir Georgius and Gentlemen" One
of his hearers, who probably had been
sat down upon by the Chairman, breaks
in with:
"a proper distinction; a very proper
distinction"
Consequently 1 always feel an i'm
pulse to explain that | also include the
Toastmaster among the gentlemen, even
though he gives me heart failure by his
summons TO speak.
An old aunt used to begin her SER
mons to us:
'Relatives-and friends"
The Baron Jomini-greatest Of all
military writers-says:
THE Swedish soldiers are the best
infantry in Europe. Let US be thank
full there are so few of them"
The Dutch people are undoubtedly
the salt of the earth. but we cannot be
too grateful that there are not more of
them.
People who beat the mighty Atlantic
out of n kingdom and bought New York
for a jug of gin and some strings of
glass beads cannot be too strongly ad-
mired.
But we common people, who do not
have Dutch blood in our veins and yet
want some of the real estate and other
good things of earth, cannot be sufii-
ciently grateful to the Almighty that He
has limited the number OF Dutch.
Tom Paine said of the Quakers, that
they pursued a guinea with a step as
steady as Time and as remorseless as
Death.
No man on earth knows a good thing
better than a true Dutchman. His step
in pursuit is as steady as the roll of
the hours, and his grip upon it as un-
shakable as a tax bill.
A year or two ago we saw the mighty
British Empire strained to its founda-
tions by the effort to pry a few thou
sand blue-eyed Dutch Calvinists loose
from the gold reefs and diamond fields
of South Africa.
We cannot take a railroad trip with
out paying tribute to the uncrowned
Dutchman who is King of the trans
portation system of the United States.
He exercises real, vital rule over more
people than a half-dozen of the little
Kings of Europe.
Every time we light a lamp it burns
in honor of another uncrowned Dutch
potentate of the Standard Oil, who is
dividing up the world like another
Cesar, and getting more tribute from II
than all the IL CeSars put together.
Years ago he divided the world East
and West with Russia on oil. Recently
he divided It North and South. with
Italy on sulphur, and 1t is unnecessary
to say that the Italians got the worst
end of the bargain.
What possible show for anything
worth having would there be for the
rest of us If there were two or three
times as many Dutch as there are?
Into whatever town one may go he
will find a man with a Van to his name,
or similar wooden-shoe index, owning
the best block on the best corner, doZ-
ing his Sunday mornings in the best
pew in the church, holding mortgages
on his neighbors' property, sleeping
away the centuries in the cosiest, shad-
lest lot in the cemetery.
He gets the first choice in everything
The rest of us must be content with
seconds and culls.
Is 1t a wonder that while we are
forced to admire him we are grateful
that he is not born triplets?
From testy, stout-hearted old Peter
with his game-leg, to our
placid, equable President. who is game
all the way through, there has always
been a large proportion of stalwart
Dutch among that
Small but glorious throng,
Whose hands have pushed this laggard
world along"
All the same, Mr.. Toastmaster and
gentlemen-again l carefully include
the Toastmaster among the gentIemen-l
OF 10 oh,
than is represented by the mortgages
on our real estate, our travelling ex-
penscs or our coal-oil bills.
More than to any other people we
owe the Dutch for the very genius of
our Government. Carlyle says that all
our political institutions came out Of
the fens and forests across the English
Channel.
We owe the Dutch for centuries of
the most heroic struggling for civil and
religious liberty and the Rights of Man
This made possible the establishment
and maintenance Of a Government of
the people, by the people and for the
people upon this continent.
We owe to Dutch blood, Dutch prin-
ciples and training, Dutch firmness of
character-obstinacy. even-multitudesI
OF American citizens of the highest
type. Men who have stood four-square
to every wind that blew adversely to
the best interests of the country; men
whose solid Dutch grasp upon honor
and righteousness was more unshakable
even than their clutch of material
men who in the evil hour stood
as immovably for the right in America
as their forefathers stood in their wood
en- shoes for the right amid the dikes of
the Lowlands.
Such men-of other blood as well as
Dutch-are the real pillars of the coun-
try's glory and greatness. Upon them
and their children rest all our hopes for
the future.
We count with confidence that they
will continue to so stand, unterrifed, |
unawed by influence and |
unswerved by gain, until that dread day
when the heavens shall come together |
as a scroll and the Star-Spangled |
Banner be the winding sheet of burn |
ing world.
The 10.h Tenn. md 1st Ala. Cav.
Editor National Tribune- please ,yiya