[Speech of Theodore Roosevelt at the eleventh annual dinner of the
Holland Society of New York, January 15, 1896. The President, Dr.
D. B. St. John Roosa, said: "The next regular toast is: 'The
Hollander as an American,' and I shall have the pleasure of
introducing a gentleman who is a member of this Society, and,
therefore, descended on the male line [laughter] from some one who
came here before 1675, is it not? [A voice--"That is right; 1675."]
One of the first Roosevelts came very near outstripping Robert
Fulton and inventing the steamboat. He did invent a steamboat, and
you know the Roosevelts have had something of a steamboat in them
ever since. Now there is another thing I want you Dutchmen to teach
the Yankees to do--pronounce his name Rosavelt and not Rusevelt.
And, by the way, mine is pronounced Rosa too. Now Mr. Roosevelt is
a man, evidently, who has the courage of his convictions [A
Voice--"That is right." Applause], and it will be a cold day for
the party to which he belongs if they undertake to turn him down. I
hoped that you all thought so. There was an old darky that used to
say about the Commandments: 'Yes, preacher, they are all right, but
in this here neighborhood the eighth Commandment ought to be taught
with some discreetions.' [Great laughter.] [A Voice: "Which is the
eighth Commandment?"] 'Thou shalt not steal.' Now in New York there
are some people who think there are some commandments that ought to
be taught with some 'discreetions.' But they had better alter their
law if they don't like it, and they had better not put a Dutchman
in office after an oath to enforce the law and then ask him why he
does enforce it. [Great applause.] This gentleman does not need any
introduction, evidently--the Hon. Theodore Roosevelt." [Great
applause. Three cheers were proposed and given for Mr. Roosevelt. A
Voice: "Tiger!"] Mr. Roosevelt: "In the presence of the judiciary,
no!" [Laughter.] There was great cheering when Mr. Roosevelt rose
to respond.]
MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN, AND BRETHREN OF THE HOLLAND
SOCIETY:--I am more than touched, if you will permit me to begin
rather seriously, by the way you have greeted me to-night. When I was in
Washington, there was a story in reference to a certain President,
who was not popular with some of his own people in a particular Western
State. One of its Senators went to the White House and said he wanted a
friend of his appointed postmaster of Topeka. The President's Private
Secretary said: "I am very sorry, indeed, sir, but the President wants
to appoint a personal friend." Thereupon the Senator said: "Well, for
God's sake, if he has one friend in Kansas, let him appoint him!" [Great
laughter.]
[Illustration: _THEODORE ROOSEVELT_
_Photogravure after a photograph from life_]
There have been periods during which the dissembled eulogies of the able
press and my relations with about every politician of every party and
every faction have made me feel I would like to know whether I had one
friend in New York, and here I feel I have many. [Great applause.] And
more than that, gentlemen, I should think ill of myself and think that I
was a discredit to the stock from which I sprang if I feared to go on
along the path that I deemed right, whether I had few friends or many.
[Cries of "Good! Good!" and great applause.]
I am glad to answer to the toast, "The Hollander as an American." The
Hollander was a good American, because the Hollander was fitted to be a
good citizen. There are two branches of government which must be kept on
a high plane, if any nation is to be great. A nation must have laws that
are honestly and fearlessly administered, and a nation must be ready, in
time of need, to fight [applause], and we men of Dutch descent have here
to-night these gentlemen of the same blood as ourselves who represent
New York so worthily on the bench, and a Major-General of the Army of
the United States. [Applause.]
It seems to me, at times, that the Dutch in America have one or two
lessons to teach. We want to teach the very refined and very cultivated
men who believe it impossible that the United States can ever be right
in a quarrel with another nation--a little of the elementary virtue of
patriotism. [Cries of "Good! Good!" and applause.] And we also wish to
teach our fellow-citizens that laws are put on the statute books to be
enforced [cries of "Hear! Hear!" and applause]; and that if it is not
intended they shall be enforced, it is a mistake to put a Dutchman in
office to enforce them.
The lines put on the programme underneath my toast begin: "America!
half-brother of the world!" America, half-brother of the world--and all
Americans full brothers one to the other. That is the way that the line
should be concluded. The prime virtue of the Hollander here in America
and the way in which he has most done credit to his stock as a
Hollander, is that he has ceased to be a Hollander and has become an
American, absolutely. [Great applause.] We are not Dutch-Americans. We
are not "Americans" with a hyphen before it. We are Americans pure and
simple, and we have a right to demand that the other people whose stocks
go to compose our great nation, like ourselves, shall cease to be aught
else and shall become Americans. [Cries of "Hear! Hear!" and applause.]
And further than that, we have another thing to demand, and that is that
if they do honestly and in good faith become Americans, those shall be
regarded as infamous who dare to discriminate against them because of
creed or because of birthplace. When New Amsterdam had but a few hundred
souls, among those few hundred souls no less than eighteen different
race-stocks were represented, and almost as many creeds as there were
race-stocks, and the great contribution that the Hollander gave to the
American people was, as your President has so ably said, the inestimable
lesson of complete civil and religious liberty. It would be honor enough
for this stock to have been the first to put on American soil the public
school, the great engine for grinding out American citizens, the one
institution for which Americans should stand more stiffly than for aught
other. [Great applause.]
Whenever America has demanded of her sons that they should come to her
aid, whether in time of peace or in time of war, the Americans of Dutch
stock have been among the first to spring to the aid of the country. We
earnestly hope that there will not in the future be any war with any
power, but assuredly if there should be such a war one thing may be
taken for certain, and that is that every American of Dutch descent will
be found on the side of the United States. We give the amplest credit,
that some people now, to their shame, grudge to the profession of arms,
which we have here to-night represented by a man, who, when he has the
title of a Major-General of the Army of the United States [Thomas H.
Ruger], has a title as honorable as any that there is on the wide earth.
[Applause.] We also need to teach the lesson, that the Hollander taught,
of not refusing to do the small things because the day of large things
had not yet come or was in the past; of not waiting until the chance may
come to distinguish ourselves in arms, and meanwhile neglecting the
plain, prosaic duties of citizenship which call upon us every hour,
every day of our lives.
The Dutch kept their freedom in the great contest with Spain, not merely
because they warred valiantly, but because they did their duty as
burghers in their cities, because they strove according to the light
that was in them to be good citizens and to act as such. And we all here
to-night should strive so to live that we Americans of Dutch descent
shall not seem to have shrunk in this respect, compared to our fathers
who spoke another tongue and lived under other laws beyond the ocean; so
that it shall be acknowledged in the end to be what it is, a discredit
to a man if he does not in times of peace do all that in him lies to
make the government of the city, the government of the country, better
and cleaner by his efforts. [Great applause.]
I spoke of the militant spirit as if it may only be shown in time of
war. I think that if any of you gentlemen, no matter how peaceful you
may naturally be, and I am very peaceful naturally [laughter], if you
would undertake the administration of the Police Department you would
have plenty of fighting on hand before you would get through [renewed
laughter]; and if you are true to your blood you will try to do the best
you can, fighting or not fighting. You will make up your mind that you
will make mistakes, because you won't make anything if you don't make
some mistakes, and you will go forward according to your lights, utterly
heedless of what either politicians or newspapers may say, knowing that
if you act as you feel bound according to your conscience to act, you
will then at least have the right when you go out of office, however
soon [laughter], to feel that you go out without any regret, and to feel
that you have, according to your capacity, warred valiantly for what you
deemed to be the right. [Great applause.]
These, then, are the qualities that I should claim for the Hollander as
an American: In the first place, that he has cast himself without
reservation into the current of American life; that he is an American,
pure and simple, and nothing else. In the next place, that he works hand
in hand and shoulder to shoulder with his fellow Americans, without any
regard to differences of creed or to differences of race and religion,
if only they are good Americans. [Great applause.] In the third place,
that he is willing, when the need shall arise, to fight for his country;
and in the fourth place, and finally, that he recognizes that this is a
country of laws and not men, that it is his duty as an honest citizen to
uphold the laws, to strive for honesty, to strive for a decent
administration, and to do all that in him lies, by incessant, patient
work in our government, municipal or national, to bring about the day
when it shall be taken as a matter of course that every public official
is to execute a law honestly, and that no capacity in a public officer
shall atone if he is personally dishonest. [Tremendous applause.]
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