This afternoon the newspaper that came to my desk contained a cable despatch which gave me a glow at the heart such as I have not felt for a while. Just three lines; but they told that a nation’s conscience was struggling victoriously through hate and foul play and treason: Captain Dreyfus was to get a fair trial. Justice was to be done at last to a once despised Jew whose wrongs had held the civilized world upon the rack; and the world was made happy. Say now it does not move! It does, where there are men to move it,—I said it before: men who believe in the right and are willing to fight for it. When the children of poverty and want came to Mulberry Street for justice, and I knew they came because Roosevelt had been there, I saw in that what the resolute, courageous, unyielding determination of one man to see right done in his own time could accomplish. I have watched him since in the Navy Department, in camp, as Governor, in the White House, and more and more I have made out his message as being to the young men of our day, himself the youngest of our Presidents. I know it is so, for when I speak to the young about him, I see their eyes kindle, and their handshake tells me that they want to be like him, and are going to try. And then I feel that I, too, have done something worth doing for my people. For, whether for good or for evil, we all leave our mark upon our day, and his is that of a clean, strong man who fights for the right and wins.
Now, then, a word to these young men who, all over our broad land, are striving up toward the standard he sets, for he is their hero by right, as he is mine. Do not be afraid to own it. The struggle to which you are born, and in which you are bound to take a hand if you would be men in more than name, is the struggle between the ideal and the husk; for life without ideals is like the world without the hope of heaven, an empty, meaningless husk. It is your business to read its meaning into it by making the ideals real. The material things of life are good in their day, but they pass away; the moral remain to bear witness that the high hopes of youth are not mere phantasms. Theodore Roosevelt lives his ideals; therefore you can trust them. Here they are in working shape: “Face the facts as you find them; strive steadily for the best.” “Be never content with less than the possible best, and never throw away the possible best because it is not the ideal best.” Maxims, those, for the young man who wants to make the most of himself and his time. Happily for the world, the young man who does not is rare.
JACOB VAN DER ZEE
“The Hollanders of Iowa,” by Jacob Van der Zee, was published at Iowa City in 1912 by the State Historical Society of Iowa. The following facts regarding the author and his book are given in the introduction of the editor, Mr. Benjamin F. Shambaugh:—
“The author of this volume on ‘The Hollanders of Iowa’ was admirably fitted for the task. Born of Dutch parents in The Netherlands and reared among kinsfolk in Iowa, he has been a part of the life which is portrayed in these pages. At the same time Mr. Van der Zee’s education at The State University of Iowa, his three years’ residence at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and his research work in The State Historical Society of Iowa have made it possible for him to study the Hollanders objectively as well as subjectively. Accordingly, his book is in no respect an overdrawn, eulogistic account of the Dutch people.
“The history of the Hollanders of Iowa is not wholly provincial: it suggests much that is typical in the development of Iowa and in the larger history of the West: it is ‘a story of the stubborn and unyielding fight of men and women who overcame the obstacles of a new country and handed down to their descendants thriving farms and homes of peace and plenty.’”
The selection here given comprises chapter four of the book.
WHY DUTCH EMIGRANTS TURNED TO AMERICA
Such was the condition of things in The Netherlands that thousands of people lived from hand to mouth, the prey of poverty and hunger, stupefied by the hopelessness of securing the necessities of life, and barely enabled through the gifts of the well-to-do to drag out their wretched lives. At the same time many of these unfortunate persons were hopeful and eager to find a place where they might obtain a livelihood, lead quiet lives of honesty and godliness, and educate their children in the principles of religion without let or hindrance. The leaders of the Separatists looked forward to a life of freedom in a land where man would not have to wait for work, but where work awaited man, where people would not rub elbows by reason of the density of population, and where God’s creation would welcome the coming of man.