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

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166 I scribe, as a condition of the right to labor, fealty to it as an organization, the workmen of Holland would have risen as much against this offensive form of tyranny as against that of the Duke of Alva. CG71'eatapj9Zause.j The barbarity of the boy- cott in its tyrannous attempt to club the free labor of our land into submission to a labor oligarchy has been strongly illustrated within a few months in the city of Chicago, where its citizens were not even given permission to bury their dead unless they employed a union driver for the hearse. One citizen of Chicago showed he had somewhat of the old Dutch hatred of tyranny, for, with his dead child in a carriage, he sat upon the driver's seat with a rilie across his lap, and vowed that he would kill the first man who stopped his free progress to his dead child's grave. QG1'eat apbplausej I The other Dutch trait to which I refer has also its salutary lesson for us to-day. It is the sanctity of property. There seems to be little disposition on the part of our leaders of public opinion to assail this right of property when it is small and in- considerable in value, but when property, in its amount, is called wealth, it seems to lose some of its sanctity. Upon what ethical principle does the sanctity of property depend ? Upon its amount? I cannot but think that the commercial prosperity of Holland was due in large measure to the good feeling between the rich andthe poor, CApplcmse.D Its people did divide on religious and political questions, but rarely on the principle of meum et mum. To-day, however, we are told, on eminent authority, that the coming political campaign is to be one between the plain people and organized wealth, and, if this means anything, it means that

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I the Duwh People was f01111ded upon two princi- ples, which are essential to the progress and 1-lap- pineSS of any people. Une was the inalienable right of every man to work for whom he pleased, and at what wage he pleased, and enjoy freely the fruit of his toil, Cgreat applauseb and the other was the sanctity of property. To me,-'these prin- ciples are in some need of vindication in this country and at this hour. Man Was brought into this world to work. It is not only his burden, it is his right, and any form of social tyranny which contravenes this right is infinitely mischievous. In vain are written con- stitutions, with their written guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, if the right of the humblest citizen to earn his bread in the sweat of his brow is thus denied. fApplcmse.j ln- deed, this form of slavery is little better than murder, for in a large sense Shylock spoke the truth when he said: You take my life when you do take from me the means whereby I live. QA p-- plausej The right of Labor to combine for its elevation and improvement is fairly conceded, but when a labor organization, with a membership of less than one tenth of the manual workmen of America, seeks to create a labor oligarchy and to compel every laboring man to join this organiza- tion, under the penalty of a denial of the right to labor, the time has come to call a halt. CGTECU applausej The Dutch people had their labor guilds, and they fittingly emphasized the fZ1i8111l3Y of labor. They served to upraise the diferent crafts, or, as they were called, mYS'CG1'16S,'i to which each guild was devoted, but if any labor guild in Holland should have attempted 130 Pfe'

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167 the contest will be between those who have not ery great respect to and those who have. With V those who .thus view the coming contest, and in no way questioning their sincerity or high mgtiveg, I yet venture to assert that this line of cleavage between the classes is as mischievous as it is lack- ing in Justification. As we value our industrial progress, as we value that which is even higher- our social happiness-let us so far imitate the wise thrifty and industrious people of Holland as to feel that life is a great symphony, in which each man is given an instrument suited to hisaptitude, but to the complete harmony of which the loyalty of each player is indispensably necessary. The Composer of that symphony intended it to be one of harmony and notof discord, and woe be .to us, His creatures, whether we play the first violin or only the cymbals, if we mar the harmony of that composition by that discord of class hatred. which, since the world began, has been the baleful 'evil of communities and nations. fApplcmse.D ,a a . The distinguished speaker who is to follow me, and whom I have already unduly postponed, is to speak on peace, and I have no thought of tres- passing either on his time or his subject. But let me say simply this about peace. I suppose he will refer to paciiic relations between our nation and other nations, or between nation and nation, and in that respect it is a beautiful theme upon which so eloquent an orator is to speak, but if there be one nation that is little concerned with peace of this class it is our country, for the time iS HOW, of in any event will be soon, that it will be so great that no nation will ever dare to menace the peace of the United States. CAppZause.j And THY only