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.]
TRUE AMERICANISM AND EXPANSION
[Speech of Theodore Roosevelt at the nineteenth annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1898. The President, William B. Davenport, in calling upon Theodore Roosevelt to speak to the toast, "The Day we Celebrate," said: "For many years we have been celebrating this day and looking at ourselves through Yankee eyes. To-night it is to be given us to see ourselves as others see us. We have with us one of whom it may be said, to paraphrase the epitaph in the Welsh churchyard:—
"'A Dutchman born, at Harvard bred,
In Cuba travelled, but not yet dead.'
In response to this toast, I have the honor of introducing Hon. Theodore Roosevelt.">[
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:—The gentleman on my right, with the unmistakably Puritan name of McKelway, in the issue of the "Eagle" to-night alluded to me as a Yankeeized Hollander. I am a middling good Yankee. I always felt that at these dinners of the New England Society, to which I come a trifle more readily than to any other like affairs, I and the president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, who is also invariably in attendance, represent, what you would say, the victims tied to the wheels of the Roman chariot of triumph. You see I am half Irish myself, and, as I told a New England Senator with whom I am intimate, when he remarked that the Dutch had been conquered by the New Englanders, "the Irish have avenged us."