spots, and is very quiet in the summer-time. In Leyden they refer to
the siege by the Spaniards in 1573 just as the Lawrence people speak
of the Quantrill raid. The Dutch were in their war for independence,
and the Duke of Alva’s army besieged Leyden. They began in October, and
as the town was well fortified it resisted bravely. Early in the year
the neighboring town of Haarlem had surrendered and the Spaniards had
tied the citizens back to back and chucked them into the river. The
Leydenites preferred to die fighting rather than surrender and die.
They had just about come to starvation in March of the next year, when
they decided to break down the dikes and let the sea take the country.
The sea brought in a relief fleet sent by William the Silent, Prince
of Orange, and the Spaniards retreated before the water. Then the wind
changed, drove back the waves, and William fixed the dikes. This siege
of Leyden was really one of the great events in history, and the story
goes that out of gratitude to the people of the town William offered to
exempt them from taxes for a term of years or to establish a University
in their city. Leyden took the University, which is hard to believe of
the Dutch, unless they were farseeing enough to know that the students
would be a never-ending source of income and that the taxes would come
back. The university thus established by William of Orange in 1575
has been one of the best of the educational institutions in Europe,
and has produced many great scholars. It now has 1700 students and a
strong faculty. Some of the boys must be making up flunks by attending
summer school, for last night at an hour when all good Dutchmen should
be in bed, the sweet strains came through the odor of the canal, same
old tune but Dutch words: “I don’t care what becomes of me, while I am
singing this sweet melody, yip de yaddy aye yea, aye yea, yip-de yaddy,
aye yea.”
* * * * *
[Illustration: NO PLACE FOR A MAN FROM KANSAS]
The river Rhine filters through Leyden and to the sea. It never would
get there, for Leyden is several feet below the sea-level, but by the
use of big locks the Dutch raise the river to the proper height and
pour it in. These are the dikes the Dutch opened to drive out the
Spaniards. It is so easy I wonder they did not do it earlier. At any
rate, the Spaniards never got much of a hold in this part of Holland
again. The sandhills along the beach make an ideal bathing-place. I
took a canal-boat and in three hours time covered the six miles from
Leyden to Katryk. The Dutch ladies and gentlemen were playing in the
water and on the sand, and it was no place for a man from Kansas. I
have no criticism of these big bathing-beaches and we have some in our
own fair land where the scenery is just as startling. But the Dutch
ladies consider a skirt which does not touch the ground the same as
immodest. And no Dutch gentleman will appear in public without his vest
as well as his coat. On the beach the reaction is great, so great that
I don’t blame the Spaniards for running away.
* * * * *
It was in Leyden that the congregation of Puritans resided which sent
the delegation of Pilgrim Fathers across the Atlantic in 1620. In St.
Peter’s church John Robinson, the pastor, lies buried, and there he
is said to have preached. A tablet tells of the house across the way
which occupies the site of the little church in which Robinson held
forth for years. The present house was not built until 1683, but
that is close enough to make it interesting. The Puritans had several
congregations in Leyden, but the Robinson church is the only one that
made history. When the civil war broke out in England and Cromwell was
leading the cause of liberty, all of the Puritans in Leyden who had
not gone to America and who could raise the fare, returned to England
and disappeared from the Dutch records. They were fine people in many
ways, but the Dutch did not try to get them to stay. They dearly loved
to argue, and when it was necessary to promote religious freedom by
punching the heads of those who did not believe as they did, the
Puritans were there with the punch.
* * * * *
Rembrandt, the great Dutch painter, was born in Leyden, in 1606. A
stable now marks the spot where he first saw the light. It is a little
difficult to get up a thrill in a livery stable, but we did our best.
Rembrandt’s father was a miller, and operated one of these big Dutch
windmills. When Rembrandt was about 25 years old he married and moved
to Amsterdam, but he did not settle down. While he became popular
and made a good deal of money, he was no manager and he spent like
a true sport. When his wife died he went broke, and lived the last
years of his life in a modest way. About 550 paintings are now known
and attributed to him, together with about 250 etchings and more than
a thousand drawings. His portrayals of expression and of lights and
shadows are the great points of excellence in his work, but he was a
master of every detail of the art. His pictures command more money than
those of any other artist, and to my notion he is the greatest of all
the great painters. Most of the other old fellows have left but few
masterpieces, while Rembrandt never did anything but great work. The
Dutch worship God, Rembrandt and William of Orange, and I never can
tell which comes first with them.
* * * * *
There is a hill in Leyden, eighty feet high and several hundred yards
around the base. It is well covered with trees, and was topped with a
fort in the good old days. Unfortunately, the buildings around it--for
it is in the middle of town--keep it from being seen at a distance.
People come from far and near to see the hill. It is as much of a
novelty in this part of Holland as a Niagara would be in Kansas.
* * * * *
The public market is a feature in every Dutch town, as it is in most
European countries. A large square is devoted to the purpose, and here
the fish, the vegetables and everything from livestock to second-hand
books is offered for sale. The square and the sidewalks are covered
with the market displays, the farmers, the fishermen, the buyers, and
the curious. There is only one small newspaper in this city of 60,000
inhabitants, but I suppose everybody hears the news at the market.
It is better than a show, or an art gallery, or a cathedral, to see
the dickering, hear the talk and watch the people. The housewives
or their representatives are there with baskets and comments, and
the men of the town have some excuse to be around. Peasant costumes,
peculiar headdresses, large fat ladies, wooden shoes, and all the odd
and picturesque things that you can put into a landscape surrounded
by quaint buildings and a canal, are mixed in confusion and yet in
order. The colors which the painters put into their Holland pictures
are present, and the sturdy, thrifty, trafficking Dutch people are
there with the petticoats or the tobacco-smoke, which their sex calls
for under such circumstances. Here in Leyden, where a house less
than a hundred years old is a curiosity and where Dutch traditions
are held as sacred, we have enjoyed the wonderful nature-picture of
this moving market. And I might add that we have contributed greatly
to the hilarity of the occasion by our own peculiar appearance and
ways--peculiar from the view-point of the other fellow.
The Dutch Capital
THE HAGUE, Aug. 2.
This is the capital of Holland and soon will be, in a way, of the
civilized world. The first international peace conference was held
here, followed by the establishment of an international tribunal to
decide disputes between nations, and now, thanks to President Taft’s
statesmanship, the nations are agreeing to arbitrate all differences,
and this Hague tribunal will doubtless be the court of last resort
for the world. The propriety of the selection of The Hague is not
questioned. Holland is a small nation, with practically no forts or
standing army or navy. It is not a factor in international politics,
and its own independence and integrity are guaranteed by the various
treaties between the nations. Its importance is commercial and not
political, it has no alliances, and occupies a unique position among
the countries of Europe. Paris or London or Berlin would not do for
the location of an international tribunal, because each would be
subject to local influence and force, but all nations can come to The
Hague, the capital of the country whose territory they have promised to
protect. As the arbitration treaties increase in number the practice of
referring disputes to The Hague will become almost universal, and it
seems to me that this will make the beautiful Dutch city the capital of
the world. Other cities will strive for commercial supremacy, but The
Hague will be the center for statesmanship and government.
* * * * *
The Dutch have abbreviated the old name S’Gravenhage to Den Haag, and
they pronounce the name of the capital just as we do the word hog. The
old word meant “The Count’s Hedge” or wood, because there was a small
forest here belonging to the Counts of Holland. The forest is still
here, a beautiful piece of natural woods about a mile and a half long
and half as wide. At the farther end of this forest is “The House in
the Wood,” which is in fact a beautiful little palace built in 1645
by Princess Amalia, the widow of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange.
Amalia had a new idea in memorials, for the principal room of the
palace, the orange room, is decorated by pictures from the brushes of
pupils of Rubens, and while they portray scenes in the life of the
Prince they are full of fat cherubs, scantily dressed ladies and very
racy suggestion. I am told Amalia was that way, but I have no personal
knowledge. All this happened nearly 300 years ago, and in any event
she had a most charming palace. Several rooms are filled with gifts
from the Emperors of China and Japan to Wilhelmina, and they add to the
general hilarity of the memorial.
* * * * *
Although The Hague was the center of the Dutch government practically
all the time from 1584, when the representatives of the Dutch provinces
met here to form a League against Spain, it had no representation in
the government until the last century. The original cities in the
federation refused to admit The Hague, and it was a sort of District
of Columbia until Napoleon took possession of Holland on the theory
that it was formed from the deposits of dirt made by French rivers.
Napoleon gave The Hague a local government, which it has since
retained. It has grown much in late years, and is a beautiful city with
good architecture, many wide streets, fine public buildings, handsome
private homes, pretty canals, and shaded avenues. It is a custom in
Holland and the Dutch colonies for men of wealth to come to The Hague,
put up fine houses and spend some of their money, just as the “town
farmers” do in Hutchinson.
* * * * *
We went to see the Gevangenpoort, an ancient tower in which prisoners
were confined, tortured and executed. They still keep some of the
interesting machines with which justice was dealt out in the good old
days. A prisoner whom the authorities desired to convict would be
allowed to prove his innocence by the ordeal of fire. He was permitted
to walk with bare feet on a red hot gridiron. If he was innocent the
heat would not affect his naked soles, if guilty it would. But that is
nothing. Our own dear old Pilgrim fathers used to take a woman charged
with witchcraft and toss her into a pond. If she were a witch, the evil
spirit would keep her from drowning and the Puritans would put her to
death. If she drowned, her innocence of the charge was proven--and
they buried her in the churchyard.
The Dutch got their early ideas of prison reform from the Spaniards.
There is a machine in the Gevangenpoort which dropped water onto a
man’s head for hours. If he lived he was crazy. Then they had a 1611
model of a rack which would break the bones in the arms and legs and
not kill the prisoner, and he could be tortured later. Pincers to pull
out finger-nails, branding-irons, and stocks that kept a man or a
woman standing on the toes for hours, were light punishments for petty
thievery. A very popular form of punishment was to hang the prisoner by
his feet, head down, and let the populace come in and enjoy the sight.
Of course these old instruments are mere relics now, but just remember
they were the real thing only 300 years ago, and 300 years is not long
in the history of the world. We never think that it was just as long
between 1311 and 1611 as it has been from 1611 to now. We confusedly
jumble all the events of about 500 years into “Middle Ages,” and can’t
remember which was in which century. The last 300 years seem long and
full of events, while the three centuries before are remembered as all
of one time. I wonder if the people on earth in 2211 will look over
some Gevangenpoort of ours and shudder at the savagery of 1911?
* * * * *
Incidentally I want to report that the people of Europe are looking on
President Taft as the great man of the age--I mean the great common
people are. His successful advocacy of international arbitration is
hailed as the coming of an era of peace. You don’t know what that means
to Europe, where nearly every man has to give years of his life to army
service, where heavy taxes for forts and ships bear down on the people,
and where there is always a possibility of war with a neighboring
nation, which would mean great loss of life. Nearly all of this war
sacrifice falls upon the people, and while they patriotically sustain
their governments they hail Taft’s policy of peace as the greatest
help that has come to them in countless years, the advance step that
will relieve the burden that bends the back of what Mr. Bryan calls
“the plain common people.” No wonder these people are for Taft but of
course they can’t vote for him in 1912.
* * * * *
The government of Holland is a sort of aristocratic republic with
a monarch for ornament. There is a lower house of congress elected
by popular vote, with some restrictions as to property on the right
of suffrage. There is an upper house selected with still more
restrictions. The upper house only can introduce bills. The lower
house only can enact them into laws. The queen signs when the Dutch
congress, or states-general, tells her to sign. She gets a salary of
about $400,000 a year and is rich in her own right. The business men
complain that she is stingy and the women say she is slouchy. Taxes are
high, and in all the forms imaginable. They tax theatre tickets, bank
checks, receipts, all documents, incomes and lands, and in some places
the number of windows in a house. Taxes are “high” everywhere I go. I
thought perhaps when I got where I could not understand the language I
would no longer be bored by the man who complains about taxes. But I
have not yet found that place. I suppose when I quit traveling on this
earthly sphere the first thing I will hear will be a kick on the cost
of paving the golden streets, or a complaint that the tax on sulphur is
going to kill the prosperity of the country.
“The Dutch Company.”
ARNHEM, August 5th.
This is the “last chance” station in Holland. About ten miles more and
we cross the line into Germany. This is also the only hilly part of
Holland, and it really is a surprise to find that somewhere in this
little country there are neither canals nor dikes. The river Rhine
flows here with some current, and the official documents say that at
Arnhem it is 35 feet above the level of the sea. Right sharp little
hills, as big as those about Strong City, rise from the river bank, and
are covered with woods and handsome homes. Queen Wilhelmina has her
summer residence near here, and Dutch colonials, who have made their
fortunes and returned to the native land, are fond of this small and
elevated piece of Netherland. The Dutch make a great deal of money out
of their East India colonies, one of which is Java. They are not so
much interested in preparing the Javanese or the Mochans for the work
of self-government as our folks are the Filipinos. The Dutch theory
is to treat the natives kindly but make them work as the dogs do in
Holland. And the Javanese or the Javans, or whatever you call them,
are too busy to get dissatisfied and plan revolutions. This question
of what to do with the white man’s burden is a hard one to settle
offhand. The brown people do not understand the American motives, and
the Americans are probably the most detested people in the Orient.
And yet the Americans are the only conquering nation which does not
regard colonies as personal property and which tries to elevate the
citizenship it finds. The English hold India by fear, but some day the
English are going to be chased out of that part of Asia by the Indians
they try to keep down. The other European nations make no bones of the
fact that they own and operate their foreign possessions for what they
can get out of them.
* * * * *
A Hollander makes a very strong American when he is caught young. On
shipboard I made the acquaintance of a young man about 25 years old who
had been in America nine years, and was now going to his birthplace,
The Hague, on business for the Chicago firm with which he is connected.
I met him in The Hague this week. He wore a western cowboy hat, had a
small American flag in his button-hole, and wore no vest. The stories
he was telling about the United States to his Dutch friends showed that
he would have made a success as a real-estate man if he had settled
in western Kansas. And the manner in which he did not take off his
hat when he met a doctor or a lawyer or a duke or a notary public was
shocking to his family, but was sweet American patriotism to him. He
was still loyal to Holland, but he would not trade his new home with
its opportunities for all the comforts of canals and clean streets.
“You see,” he said, “in Holland every man has to take off his hat to
those above him--and there are always those above him.” Of course we
have classes, in a way, in our country, but a man never has to take
off his hat or pay homage to another man, and the real American,
home-grown or imported, can’t get that feeling of equality out of his
system. I think the Europeans must grow very tired of us Americans, our
blustering ways and bragging talk, but they are kind enough not to
mention it so long as our money holds out.
* * * * *
Passenger fares on trains are cheaper in Holland than with us. But of
course their railroad business is really like an interurban street-car
system. Freight rates are higher than with us. The wages paid railway
employés run from 60 cents a day to section hands up to $2 a day for an
engineer--just about one-third to one-half our schedule. The service
is good, the stations and tracks are better, every little country
road-crossing is protected by a flagman or a flagwoman. Of course the
canals and rivers do so much of the carrying business, and distances
are so small, that comparisons are hard to make. There is no such thing
in Holland as a sandwich or a piece of pie, and yet there are very
successful and excellent lunch-rooms in every station. The first-and
second-class passengers usually have a lunch-room with upholstered
furniture, while the third-class travelers are compelled to use wooden
benches or stand up, a la Americaner. The first-class railroad cars are
fitted out with plush, and there are sometimes toilet accommodations
on the cars. The second-class cars are comfortably upholstered; the
third-class have plain seats like our street cars. But remember you can
go clear across Holland in a couple of hours, and do not need some of
the comforts which are considered necessities in America.
* * * * *
The Dutch are great on fixing things comfortably and neatly. If the
beautiful Cow Creek which winds its way through Hutchinson were
transferred to a Dutch town it would be diked, the banks graded and
covered with grass and flowers and trees. The government would do this,
and would put seats along the little park, and a band-stand from which
music would be heard, and swings for the children, and almost every
block there would be a “garden” with tables and all the beer you could
drink--if you were Dutch--for two cents. And the Government would make
a nice profit out of the restaurant business and go ahead and dike
another stream.
* * * * *
The Dutchman is a great business man. He works and saves and then
he is not afraid to spend--if he has a sure thing. I have seen a
business man smoking a cigarette, take out of his vest pocket a pair
of scissors, snip off the burning end and put the unconsumed half of
a cigarette back in his case. No Dutchman is afraid to demand cheap
prices while traveling at home. The average American who goes through
Europe with the theory of spending his money like a sport must fill
the Dutchman with disgust. You don’t impress the Hollanders that way.
On the other hand, these Dutchmen will investigate and spend barrels
of money on dikes, drains, railroads, buildings and large investments
in all parts of the world. I suppose the almost penurious saving comes
from the fight with the sea, in which everything had to be watched and
worked for, while the ability to handle big affairs results from the
consciousness of having wrested a lot of land from the ocean and having
made good with it.
* * * * *
The Dutch are proverbially honest. Of course I have been over-charged
some, but I have never been anywhere on either side of the Atlantic
where the rule was not observed, “he was a stranger and I took him
in.” They hold a visitor up much more in Kansas City than in Amsterdam,
and a man from Kansas who goes to New York is not even given the
protection of the game laws. In fact, a stranger who does not know
the language is treated much better in Europe than in America. I have
often had a man walk half a block to show me the way when I could not
understand his words. I say “walk a block,” but there is no such phrase
in Dutch. There are no regular sized blocks, so a direction is given
as “five minutes” or “two minutes, then to the right three minutes.”
That is supposed to mean an average walk; but as legs differ in size
and rapidity it is often confusing. I am told in the rural districts
a distance is given as so many smokes, meaning the number of pipefuls
of tobacco that a Dutchman would consume in going that far. But I have
discovered that in Holland a pipe is a rarity. The men smoke cigars and
smoke them incessantly. They are cheap. I get a good cigar, equivalent
to a Tom Moore, for two cents American money. When I buy cigars I want
to stay in Holland. But practically everything except cigars, beer and
wooden shoes costs as much here as in the United States. Yes, there is
one thing that costs less, and that is labor. Therefore hand-carved
wood, hand-crocheted lace, hand-made shoes, tailored clothes, and
houses are less expensive than with us. The more I see of a country
where everything labor produces is cheap, the more I am in favor of
high prices and good wages. Holland is probably the best country in
Europe for a laboring man, but I don’t see how one can get ahead,
unless he does without meat and wears the same suit for years, and his
family economize the same way. Here in the land of cheese and butter,
both articles are out of reach and the workingman uses “margarine.”
But now it is goodby to the land of the dikes, the canals, the
windmills and the wooden shoes. They are all here as advertised, and
they color the lives of the people as they do the landscape of the
country. To the eye they are artistic and beautiful, but in practice
they are common, plain necessities, and in these signs the Dutch have
conquered.
The Great River
KOENIGSWINTER, GERMANY, August 7.
The river Rhine is in many respects the greatest river in the world.
It is greatest in commercial importance, historical interest and
artistic development. It has been the line of battle in Europe for
centuries, since Cæsar first crossed the stream and met the original
Germans. After that time it was the frontier of the Roman empire until
Rome fell, and then it became the object for which Europe fought.
The Germans and the French met on the Rhine, the other “civilized
countries” got in the game, and the valley was filled with feudal
counts and princes who sometimes took one side and sometimes the other,
whichever seemed to offer them the best pickings. The broad and deep
stream was a highway of commerce, and the old champions of chivalry,
with whom robbery and murder were the principal business, built
castles on the hills, and whenever they saw a merchant with a rich
caravan of goods, down they would swoop on him, grab his valuables
and kill the defenders. These adventures and wars were what the world
called history, and during the Middle Ages the place where hell was
continually breaking out was along this beautiful valley. The use of
gunpowder finally put an end to knights in armor, and the Germans and
the French struggled for the Rhine. Napoleon conquered the valley,
organized it into a republic, and finally annexed it to France. The
Allies conquered Napoleon and restored the Prussian king and the petty
princes to their possessions. The war of 1870 between Germany and
France pushed the boundary a considerable distance west, and made the
Rhine valley all German, under the newly organized empire.
* * * * *