The vice-President,
Robert B. Roosevelt, presided, and called upon General Stryker to
respond to the toast, "The Dutch Soldier in America."]
MR. PRESIDENT:--As well-born Dutchmen, full, of course,
to-night of the spirit which creates Dutch courage, it is pleasant for
us to look across the seas, to recall the martial life of our
progenitors and to speak of their great deeds for liberty. It is
conducive to our family pride to trace back the source of the blessings
we enjoy to-day through all the brilliant pages of Netherland history to
the time when the soldiers of freedom--the "Beggars"--chose rather to
let in the merciless ocean waves than to surrender to the ruthless
invader. [Applause.]
We love to say that we can see in the glory of free institutions in this
century the steady outgrowth of that germ of human liberty which was
planted by the sturdy labor, which was watered by the tears and blood,
and fructified by the precious lives of those who fought by land and sea
in the battles of the sixteenth century. [Applause.]
Although we make our boast of the indomitable courage, the many
self-denials, the homely virtues of our forefathers, think you that we
in America are degenerate sons of noble sires? I trow not! [Renewed
applause.]
That irascible old Governor who stamped his wooden leg on the streets of
New Amsterdam, who ruled with his iron will and his cane the thrifty
burghers of this young city, did he not, when called upon to show a
soldier's courage, wage a successful contest with savage foes, with the
testy Puritans of Connecticut and with the obdurate Swedes on
Christiana Creek?
Before the old Dutch church in Millstone on the Raritan River, in the
summer of 1775, a hundred of the young men of the village were drilled
every night.
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