[Speech of Rev. Dr. Andrew V. V. Raymond at the thirteenth annual
dinner of the Holland Society of New York, January 12, 1898. The
President, John W. Vrooman, said: "I must now make good a promise,
and permit me to illustrate it by a brief story. A minister about
to perform the last rites for a dying man, a resident of Kentucky,
said to him with solemnity that he hoped he was ready for a better
land. The man instantly rallied and cried out, 'Look here, Mr.
Minister, there ain't no better land than Kentucky!' To secure the
attendance of our genial and eloquent College President I made a
promise to him to state publicly at this time that there is no
better college in the world than Union College; that there is no
better president in the world than the president of old Union; and
I may add that there is no better man than my valued friend,
President Andrew V. V. Raymond, of Union College, who will respond
to the toast: 'The Dutch as Enemies.--Did a person but know the
value of an enemy he would purchase him with fine gold.'"]
MR. PRESIDENT:--Ladies--to whom now, as always, I look up for
inspiration--and gentlemen of the Holland Society, when one has been
rocked in a Dutch cradle, and baptized with a Dutch name and caressed
with a Dutch slipper, and nursed on Dutch history, and fed on Dutch
theology, he is open to accept an invitation from the Holland Society.
It is now four years since I had the pleasure of speaking my mind freely
about the Dutch, and in the meantime so much mind--or is it only
speech--has accumulated that the present opportunity comes very much
like a merciful interposition of Providence on my behalf. During these
years my residence has been changed, for whereas I used to live in
Albany now I live in Schenectady, which is like moving from The Hague to
Leyden, or in other words, going a little farther into the heart of
Dutchdom, for nowhere else is Dutch spelled with a larger D than in the
city of my residence to-day, with Lisha's Kill on one side, and
Rotterdam on another, and Amsterdam on the third, and a real dyke on the
fourth, to say nothing of the canal.
You do not remember that speech of mine four years ago for you did not
hear it. That was not my fault, however, but your misfortune, of course.
You did not hear it because you were not here. You were asleep in your
own beds, of course, where Dutchmen always go when they are sleepy,
which is perhaps the principal reason why they are not caught napping in
business hours. Unfortunately, however, that speech was printed in full,
or I might repeat it now. One learns from such little experiences what
not to do the next time. But if you do not remember the speech, I do--at
least the subject--which was "The Dutch as Neighbors," and it has seemed
wise to get as far as possible from that subject to-night lest I might
be tempted to plagiarize, and so I propose to talk for a moment only
about "The Dutch as Enemies."
I do not like the first suggestion of this subject any more than do you.
For to think of a man as an enemy is to think ill of him, and to
intimate that the Dutchman was not and is not perfect is to intimate
something which no one here will believe, and which no one certainly
came to hear. But as a matter of fact, gentlemen, no one can be perfect
without being an enemy any more than he can be perfect without being a
friend. The two things are complementary; the one is the reverse side of
the other. Everything in this universe, except a shadow, has two
sides--unless, perhaps, it may be a political machine whose
one-sidedness is so proverbial as to suggest that it also is a thing
wholly of darkness caused by someone standing in the way of the light.
The Dutchman, however, is not a shadow of anything or of anybody. You
can walk around him, and when you do that you find that he has not only
a kindly face and a warm hand, but something called backbone, and it is
that of which I am to speak to-night, for it suggests about all that I
mean by the Dutchman as an enemy.
Some people are enemies, or become enemies, because of their spleen;
others because of their total depravity; and others still because they
persist in standing upright when someone wants them to lie down and be
stepped on. That is the meaning of backbone, in this world of human
strife, and if, from time to time, it has made an enemy of the
peace-loving Dutchman, it has been the kind of enmity that has gathered
to itself not a little gratitude, for after all it is the kind of enmity
that has made this world more tolerable as a place of temporary abode. If
no one opposes tyrants and thieves and heretics and franchise-grabbers,
city lots fall rapidly in price. It is the Dutchman who keeps up the real
estate market. When I have suggested that it is because of his opposition
that he is regarded as an enemy, I have come to the heart of all that
I propose to say to-night. As a matter of fact, the Dutchman has never
been very aggressive. He may not be enterprising, but his powers of
resistance are superb, and as this world wags it is often better to hold
fast than it is to be fast.
If the Dutchman has not been aggressive, he has certainly been
steadfast. He has never become an enemy willingly, but always under
compulsion; willing to let other people alone if they will let him
alone, and if they will not do that, then he makes them do it. Those
dykes tell the whole story. The Dutchman did not want the sea--only the
earth. But when the sea wanted him he took up arms against it. It was so
with those Roman legions. The Dutchman had no quarrel with Rome until
Rome wanted to extend its empire that way, and to acquire him and grow
fat from his tribute money. But the Dutchman had no need of an empire up
his way, and so kept his tribute money, and sent the eagles home hungry.
If Spain had not wanted to whip the Dutchman, the Dutchman would not
have whipped Spain. If England had not wanted a brush with the Dutch,
that broom would never have been nailed to Tromp's masthead. If Jameson
had not tried to raid the Dutchman, the Dutchman would not have
corralled Jameson. From first to last, his battles have been on the
defensive. He has always been ambitious to be a good friend with the
latch-string always on the outside, and has only become an enemy when
somebody has tried to get into his house through the window. That kind
of enmity hurts no one who does not deserve to be hurt.
As this world goes, it is a great thing to say of a man that he never
gets down his gun until he sees another gun pointed his way, but it is a
greater thing to say that when he does see that other gun he does not
get under the bed, and that is what can be said of the Dutchman more
than of any other man in the world. He will not run into a fight; he
will not run away from a fight--in fact he has no reputation whatever as
a runner in any direction. But he can take a stand, and when the smoke
has cleared away there he is, still standing. He will not vote himself
an enemy, but if against his will he is voted an enemy, he accepts the
election, and discharges the duties of his office with painstaking
vigilance and care. Now, no one does that, and ever gets re-elected, no
matter what the office. Such is the world. And so the Dutchman has never
been voted an enemy twice by the same people. One term of his vigorous
administration of hostile forces is quite enough, and inasmuch as he
does not care for the office personally, and takes it only from a sense
of duty, he never seeks a re-election. He is always ready to step down
and out, and resume his old occupation of being a good neighbor and a
peace-loving citizen.
That is perhaps his greatest virtue, and it all grows out of the fact
that his spirit of antagonism is located in his backbone, leaving his
heart free. He does not love strife and he does not hate the man with
whom he fights, and so, in all his battles, he has never been
vindictive, cruel, merciless. When he has had to fight he has fought
like a man and a Christian, for righteousness' sake, and not like a
demon to humiliate and to annihilate his foes. That makes the Dutchman a
rare kind of enemy, and that, more than anything else, I think, has
distinguished his enmity through all the years of his history. He has
gone far toward obeying the precept, "Love your enemies, and bless them
that curse you." If he has not been able to keep men from hating him,
and cursing him, and persecuting him, he has been able to keep himself
from hating and cursing and persecuting in return; and so, while he is
one of the greatest of military heroes in history, he is also one of the
greatest of moral heroes, and that is a greater honor, inasmuch as "He
that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city."
I do not claim all glory for the Dutch. It is not given to any one
nation to monopolize virtue. I only assert that the Dutchman's virtue is
of a peculiarly exalted type. The Englishman's virtue is just as real,
only another kind of virtue. If the Dutchman's spirit of hostility or of
antagonism resides in his backbone, the Englishman's spirit of hostility
or antagonism resides in his breastbone. That makes all the difference
between them. The Englishman fights, but he fights aggressively. And as
the heart lies back of the breastbone it never gets into his fighting.
He neither loves his enemies nor hates them. He simply loves England. If
it has been the mission of the Dutch to keep, it has been the mission of
the English to get, and in the getting he has had to do a world of
fighting.
It comes with ill grace from us, however, to condemn the Englishman when
to-day Uncle Sam is standing on the Pacific Slope expanding his chest
toward Hawaii. But if we cannot condemn with good grace, there is no
need to praise English aggressiveness and acquisitiveness overmuch; what
we do need to praise and cultivate is the Dutch virtue of holding fast
our own. We have institutions and principles, rights and privileges, in
this country which are constantly attacked, and the need of America is
that the backbone which the Dutch have given to this country should
assert itself. Hospitality loses its virtue when it means the
destruction of the Lares and Penates of our own firesides. When a guest
insists on sitting at the head of the table, then it is time for the
host to become _hostis_. What America needs in this new year of grace is
not less hospitality toward friends but more hostility toward intruders.
The spirit of this age is iconoclastic. It seeks to destroy sacred
memorials, hallowed associations, holy shrines, everything that tells of
the faith and the worship of a God-fearing past. The spirit of the age
is irreverent, destructive, faithless. Against this and all despoiling
forces we as patriots are called to arms. For what does America stand?
What are the truths that have gone into her blood and made her strong
and beautiful and dominant? The divineness of human rights, the claims
of men superior to the claims of property; popular government--not an
oligarchy; popular government--not a dictatorship; the sacredness of
the home, the holiness of the sanctuary, faith in humanity, faith in
God. These have made America, and without these there can be no America.
And because they are attacked, gentlemen, the need of the hour is a
patriotism that shall breathe forth the spirit of the people who above
all others in history have known how to keep their land, their honor,
and their faith. The mission of little Holland will never be ended so
long as America needs the inspiration of her glorious example, and the
devoted citizenship of her loving sons.