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

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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

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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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168 concern is that we are so sure, by reasonof our strength and power, to be immune from touch that we may some day be unjust by reason of that very immunity. But the peace which is the vital question of the hour, and which you descendants of a brave ancestry, and all of us who are here assembled, must fight out unless free institutions are to be a failure in this country, is peace within, peace between class and class, peace between em- ployer and employee, peace that will recognize not only justice, but recognize, as an incident to justice, the right that every Dutchman claimed, the right, as I have stated, to work for whom he pleased, for what wage he pleased, and on exactly what conditions he pleased. QL0ud applausej A THE PRESIDENT: Our next speaker has recently appeared in a new role. He has crossed the briny deep, travelled into distant countries, and inter- viewed all foreign potentates. At one time some of us thought he might be adopted by the Czar of Russia of by some other distinguished ruler on .the other side, and it was a great joy to us to know that 'he remains American. He might have been a Rooshan, A A Turk, or French, or Prooshan, Or perhaps Eye-tal-i-an,- But in spite of all temptations A To belong to other nations, He remains American. - And he comes back to us as American as ever. I have very great pleasure in introducing the Hon- orable William jennings Bryan, who will talk on PEACE. E E E C6 , , V Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.