THE HOLLANDER AS AN AMERICAN

Speech of Theodore Roosevelt at the eleventh annual dinner of the
Holland Society of New York, January 15, 1896.

MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN, AND BRETHREN OF THE HOLLAND SOCIETY:--I am
more than touched, if you will permit me to begin rather seriously, by
the way you have greeted me to-night. When I was in Washington, there
was a story in reference to a certain president, who was not popular
with some of his own people in a particular western state. One of its
senators went to the White House and said he wanted a friend of his
appointed postmaster of Topeka. The president's private secretary said,
"I am very sorry, indeed, sir, but the president wants to appoint a
personal friend." Thereupon the senator said: "Well, for God's sake, if
he has one friend in Kansas, let him appoint him!"

There have been periods during which the dissembled eulogies of the able
press and my relations with about every politician of every party and
every faction have made me feel I would like to know whether I had one
friend in New York, and here I feel I have many. And more than that,
gentlemen, I should think ill of myself and think that I was a discredit
to the stock from which I sprang if I feared to go on along the path
that I deemed right, whether I had few friends or many.

I am glad to answer to the toast, "The Hollander as an American." The
Hollander was a good American, because the Hollander was fitted to be a
good citizen. There are two branches of government which must be kept on
a high plane, if any nation is to be great. A nation must have laws that
are honestly and fearlessly administered, and it must be ready, in time
of need, to fight; and we men of Dutch descent have here to-night these
gentlemen of the same blood as ourselves who represent New York so
worthily on the bench, and a major-general of the army of the United
States.

It seems to me, at times, that the Dutch in America have one or two
lessons to teach. We want to teach the very refined and very cultivated
men who believe it impossible that the United States can ever be right
in a quarrel with another nation--a little of the elementary virtue of
patriotism. And we also wish to teach our fellow citizens that laws are
put on the statute books to be enforced and that if it is not intended
they shall be enforced it is a mistake to put a Dutchman in office to
enforce them.

The lines put on the program underneath my toast