The Holland Society of New York - Yearbook (New York, NY)

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'I6I of the World. They Were the first manufacturing, agricultural, and commercial people, This was the more astounding because, apart ffom the poverty of their country's natural resources, they were obliged to create the very land upon which they lived. The immemorial folly of Canute, who had vainly told the Waves of the ocean to stand back, was With them an inspired reality, for at their sublime determination, the Waves of the all- conquering ocean did recede and left this little alluvial strip of territory, Which, like Palestine and little Greece, Was so memorable in the annals of human progress. Having thus ,conquered the sea, it was not unnatural that they early made it their obedient vassal. They became the best sailors and the greatest merchants of the World. Their manufactures of Wool, silk, linen, and lace were the first in Europe, and did much to lift the European peoples from their condition of squalor and poverty. Their sails Whitened every sea and brought drugs and spices from the East, Wines from France, furs from Russia, in exchange for which they gave not merely the products of the soil, but the Wonderful results of their artisan in- genuity. Their manufacturing enterprise can be measured by the fact that as early as 1340 there .Were in Ghent 4o,ooo Woollen Weavers, While a few years later the goldsmiths of Bruges were so numerous as to form an entire division of the na- tional army. In the ivvake of commerce followed art, learning, and science, and, best of all, those free institutions upon which the early coloniStS of America' built to such manifest advantage. Com- merce Was so much the very life-blood. Of the Dutch people, that even during their hfe-and-

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16o very children fought with the undying courage of their parents, were they not a true via dolorosa? That market-place at Haarlem, where, after a seven months' siege, the defenders were butchered, without respect to age or sex, is it not a golgotha, or place of skulls? The spirit of the Beggars of the Sea was well expressed in those defiant words, hurled from the battlements of Leyden to the remorseless foe: You call us rat-eaters and dog-eaters, and it is true. So long, then, as ye hear dog bark or cat mew, ye may know the city will hold out, and when all has perished but our- selves, be sure that we will each devour our left arms, retaining our right, to defend our Women, our religion, and our liberty. When the last hour has come, we will set fire to the city and perish, men, women, and children, in the flames, rather than suffer our homes to be dishonored and our liberties crushed. CG1'eat applausej That this boast was not an empty one was well shown by that old Dutch admiral, who, having fought against overwhelming odds for forty-eight hours, called his men about him when his ship was a dis- masted hulk, and, with their permission, applied the match to the powder magazine and blew them all into eternity rather than surrender to the foe. Mpplausej p s It is not my purpose, however, to recount this bead-roll of unclouded heroism. The world knows, or ought to know, it by heart. But I wish to call your attention to the fact that this heroism was that of an essentially, commercial and peaceful race. T For some centuries prior to the struggle for independence, Holland had been the most com- mercial, and therefore the most civilized, country 4

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I62 death struggle with Spain, they in some manner maintained it. In 1595 they had rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and in r 598 sailed through the Straits of Magellan. They came, not as pirates and freebooters, but as merchants, who sought nothing more than an exchange of products. When the seventeenth century was in its infancy, there came into existence the two great trading companies of the Dutch East Indies and the Dutch West Indies, and to the latter we owe the discovery of our noble river and the founding of New York. CApplcmse.D It has been well said that New York is the true child of Amsterdam, and it inherits from Amsterdam the two things which have made it greatest-its cosmopolitanism and its commercialism. 5 I have mentioned this because the brave Hol- landers have proved beyond possibility of con- tradiction that the noblest spirit of self-sacrifice and the most enduring courage were possible with an -essentially commercial people. In our time there are not wanting jeremiahs, who declaim ,against the spirit of our time, and who affect to feel that men, inspired by the lust of gold, are rushing down to an abyss of dishonor with the insensate fury of the Gadarene swine. If I shall, in passing, say a word with reference to this mat- ter I trust that I shall be acquitted of any dis- respect to Mr. Bryan. In common with many Americans, I have very great- personal respect for him. You will remember that when, in Twelfth N ight, Malvolio was imprisoned, as a supposed madman, and when the curate and his mischievous followers were mocking him, theyasked him what was his opinion of the doctrine of Pythagoras, and