A Journey of a Jayhawker

by W. Y. Morgan

The Hague, Holland, Aug. 2, 1905.

Before leaving Amsterdam we took a trip through several little Dutch villages and to the island of Maarken, where the fisher-people continue to wear their eighteenth-century costumes in the progressive, stylish twentieth century. As a very pleasing incident of this journey we happened to reach Maarken at the same time with Queen Wilhelmina, so we not only got to see a live queen but in the excitement in the village escaped the attention usually given to American tourists by a thrifty people who have curios to sell. Queen Wilhelmina was a disappointment. I had been prepared to see a charming girlish sovereign, and I guess I was looking for something like a bright American girl with her hair hanging down her back. The queen is only 24 years old, but she looks 30. She wore a cheap-looking white suit which probably cost 30 cents a yard, American money. Her face was faded and so was her hat. She has large feet, wears coarse shoes, and her stockings wrinkled around the ankle like a fisherwoman’s. The stolidity of the Dutch was too much for me. The queen walked through the village, and while everybody turned out to see her there was not a cheer. When she passed the little group of a half-dozen Americans we took off our hats and gave a loud hurrah, just to show our friendship. She didn’t smile or look around, and we felt as cheap as she looked. In appearance she is sad and uninteresting. In America a governor or a president would have smiled and spoken cheerfully. But the queen of Holland does not have to run for reëlection, and I suppose that has a salutary effect on American statesmen. I will confess right now that my observations of European nobility have been made at a distance. I have not been mingling with the dukes and counts, but have received most of my impressions from the hotel clerks, the hackmen, the store-keepers and the workingmen. They are always glad to talk or make signs to Americans, and I have not met one laboring man who did not say he wanted to come to America. In the smoking-rooms and around the hotels I have talked some with the so-called “upper classes.” They don’t like America or England. I think the rulers of continental Europe and all the lords and valets are afraid America and England are going to combine with Japan and rule the world. The leading newspapers are full of that kind of talk, and while it is laughable to find that they think the American people are planning an invasion of Europe, it has a satisfactory side in the fact that it shows they think we could do it if we tried. The ruling classes are hostile politically to America. On the other hand, the working people are very friendly. The kings and nobles know that their jobs would not last long under American ideas. And the workingmen think that America means a chance to earn more than a mere living. Both classes have instinctively taken a position on the American question, and I don’t blame them.

Amsterdam is the biggest city in Holland and is the capital, but the queen and court reside at The Hague. Amsterdam is rich in commerce, but is beneath the level of the sea, rather unsightly, and perhaps unhealthy. The Hague is about as high as the sea-level and is on real land, not the drained and reclaimed sort. It has some beautiful streets and thousands of acres of woods which are kept in comparatively original condition and used for parks and drives. The two cities are only an hour’s ride apart, and The Hague is becoming the residence city for wealthy Dutchmen. Amsterdam is one of the financial centers of the world. The Hague is one of the political centers of the world. On account of its size Holland is not considered dangerous, and therefore presents a convenient meeting-place for international conferences. We visited the palace known as “The House in the Woods,” where the peace conference was held in 1899, on the suggestion of the czar of Russia, and in which twenty-six governments were represented. The actual result was not much, but an international court at The Hague was provided to which nations can submit disputed questions if they wish, and probably after the Japs get through with the czar so he can call another peace conference, further steps will be taken to prevent or mitigate the horrors of war. Andrew Carnegie, the same gentleman who put up the money for the Hutchinson public library, has promised $1,500,000 to erect an international court-house at The Hague which will be a suitable place for what might be called an international supreme court. One great weight which every European power has holding down its progress is the necessity of maintaining a large standing army and thus withdrawing from active production a big per cent. of its workers. The governments of Europe know this and talk of “disarming,” but each one is afraid the others won’t do it. And I also have a guess coming that some of the kings and queens would worry a little over the future of their jobs if they did not have the big armies at their command.

The Dutch are a hard-working lot. They get up earlier than the people of any other country I have seen in Europe. And as the entire family works, from the grandmother to the dog, they accumulate wealth as a nation and as individuals. The ordinary dwelling is part of the store, the shop, the barn or the windmill, so that the women-folks can do their part of the labor and not lose much time going back and forth. Whenever the women are not attending to the farm or the shop they are scrubbing. The smell of good strong soap is one of the real Dutch landmarks as much as a windmill or a canal.

From Amsterdam we went to Edam and Monnikendam and Volendam and Zaandam, and from here we go to Rotterdam and through several other dams. The affix “dam” means bridge or embankment, and in a country of canals it is not surprising that nearly all the names of towns end with dam, Amsterdam being on the bank of the Amsel river, and so on. When I was a boy I heard the story of the teacher who was having her class give sentences containing the words they were learning to spell. One day they came to the word “cofferdam,” and the teacher asked the bright boy of the class to frame a sentence illustrating the use of the word. He wrote on the blackboard: “Our old cow thought some sawdust was bran, and if she don’t look out she will cofferdam head off.” The word “dam” is not a cuss-word in Dutch. If it were, all the dam towns would be printed with a dash for the last syllable.

The history of Holland has about as much trouble in it as that of any country. It was not much of a nation during the dark and medieval ages, as there was no such state, but a number of petty vassal lords and bishops. About 1500 a Holland count got the title of Prince of Orange by marrying a French heiress. The principal ruler in Holland was the count of Burgundy, but the Dutch cities developed along business lines and were to a certain extent independent of kings and emperors, although nominally a part of the German empire. In the sixteenth century Philip of Spain inherited the sovereignty of the country, and by his bigoted and cruel rule started a civil war in 1568 which lasted eighty years and ended in the independence of Holland. During that war the Dutch had to have a leader, and so they elected William, prince of Orange, as stadtholder, or governor. Under his management the war was fought successfully, and when he was assassinated his son was elected stadtholder. The Dutch were divided into two parties, the Democratic and Aristocratic, and when Spain was defeated there was trouble between them. The so-called Dutch Republic was only an aristocracy, the privilege of participating in the government being restricted to a privileged class of small nobles and wealthy families. The office of stadtholder was elective, but generally went to the Oranges. Holland by its wise statesmanship and a strong navy was a world-power for a while, and in alliance with England and Sweden generally defeated the French and Spanish, and when there was war with England the Dutchmen held their own. Finally William III. of Orange became king of England, and the Dutch Republic lost its prestige. In the eighteenth century it was a tail to the English kite, and in 1806 Napoleon made his brother king of Holland and five years later annexed the country to France. After Napoleon’s defeat the European powers created the kingdom of Holland, joined Belgium to it, and made William of Orange king of the united country. The Belgians broke away in 1830, and since that time Holland has been a monarchy, although the power is with the people.