Part 3
The Queen of Holland is a woman. This is not a startling statement, for so far as I know a man has never been a queen in any country. But there is no king. Queen Wilhelmina’s husband, Prince Henry, is not a king. If there is any ruling to do in Holland it is done by Wilhelmina. Henry can’t even appoint a notary public. No one pays any attention to him, and I understand Wilhelmina has given it out that what Henry says does not go with her. I am trying to investigate the status of affairs in the royal family, because I had entertained the idea that Wilhelmina was an unfortunate young queen with a bad husband. That may have been so a few years ago, but now I understand she bats poor Henry around scandalously, pays no heed to his wishes, and pointedly calls his attention about three times a day to the fact that he is nothing but a one-horse prince while she is the boss of the family and the kingdom. This pleases the Dutch immensely, for Henry is a German and the Dutch don’t like the Germans. They think the Germans are conceited and arrogant, and that Emperor William is planning to eventually annex The Netherland to Germany. So every time Wilhelmina turns down the German prince all the Dutch people think it is fine, and her popularity is immense. Henry gets a good salary, but his job would be a hard one for a self-respecting American. I understand he is much dissatisfied, but he was not raised to a trade, and if Wilhelmina should stop his pay he would go hungry and thirsty, two conditions which would make life intolerable for a German prince.
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Wilhelmina has a daughter, two years old, named Juliana. I suppose Henry is related to Juliana, but he gets no credit for it. Everywhere you go you see pictures of Wilhelmina and Juliana, but not of Henry. A princess is really what the Dutch want, for their monarch has actually no power, and the government is entirely managed by the representatives of the people. But a prince would likely be wild, and might want to mix into public affairs. A princess makes a better figurehead of the state. She will be satisfied with a new dress and a hand-decorated crown, and not be wanting an army and battleships as a prince might do. Wilhelmina represents to the Dutch people the ruling family of Orange, which brought them through many crises, and Juliana is another Orange. Henry is only a lemon which the Germans handed to them.
The royal family are off on a visit to Brussels, and I have not met any of them. This information I have gleaned from the hotel porters, the boat captains, the chambermaids, and the clerks who speak English. I imagine I have come nearer getting the facts than if I had sent in my card at the royal palace.
The Pilgrims’ Start
DELFTSHAVEN, July 25.
This is the town from which the Pilgrims sailed on the trip which was to make Plymouth Rock famous. Nearly a hundred of the congregation of Rev. John Robinson at Leyden came to this little suburb of Rotterdam, and embarked on the Speedwell. The night before the start was spent by the congregation in exhortation and prayer in a little church which still stands, and has the fact recorded on a big tablet. The Pilgrims went to Southampton, discovered the Speedwell was not seaworthy, and transferred to the Mayflower.
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Those English Puritans who had emigrated from their own country to Holland were considered “religious cranks” even in those days when fighting and killing for religion was regarded the proper occupation of a Christian. The Puritans in England were strong in numbers, and while Queen Elizabeth had frowned upon them as dissenters from the church of which she was the head, she was politician enough to restrain the persecution of them, for they were useful citizens and loved to die fighting Spaniards. But a few extremists who persisted in preaching in public places were sentenced to jail, and some of these skipped to Holland. Queen Elizabeth died and James became the King of England, and he was a pinhead. He hated non-conformists as much as Catholics. So, more of the Puritans who could not pretend to conform went to Holland, and in Leyden and Amsterdam they founded little settlements. Holland was a land of liberty, and the Puritans wanted the right to disagree, non-conform, argue and debate over disputed questions. There were several congregations of them, and they did not agree on important doctrines, such as whether John the Baptist’s hair was parted on the side or in the middle. Public debates were held and great enjoyment therefrom resulted, although there is no record of anyone having his opinion changed by the arguments, and the side whose story you are reading always overcame the other.
The Puritans did not mix much with the Dutch, and naturally grew lonesome in their exile. They conceived the plan of emigrating to the New World and there establishing the right to worship God in accord with their own conscience. Influential Puritans in England who had not been so cranky as to leave home, helped with the king, and finally they secured permission from James to settle in America and to own the land they should develop. James remarked at the time he would prefer that they go to Hell, where they belonged, but he was needing a loan from the English Puritans, so he gave the permit. The Puritans in old England also provided a good part of the money with which to fit out the expedition. At the time there was a general movement among the Puritans in England for a big migration to the New World. This was to be a sort of experiment station. At the time, James was king, and Charles, a dissolute prince, was to follow. The Puritans were sick at heart and ready to leave their native land. But soon after the Pilgrims had made their settlement in New England, the Puritans at home developed leaders who put them into the fight for Old England. Then along came Cromwell, and for many years English Puritans were running the government, and the necessity for a safe place across the sea and an asylum for religious liberty disappeared so far as they were concerned, though their interest in the Colonists was maintained. The sons of these Puritans who crossed the ocean rather than go to the established church, refused to pay a tax on tea, about 150 years later, and formed a new country with a new flag. That was part of the result of the sailing of the little company from Rev. Mr. Robinson’s flock after a night spent in prayer in this town of Delftshaven, just about this time of the year in 1620.
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The stay of the Puritans in Holland had no effect on the Dutch. They let the Puritans shoot their mouths any way they pleased, and the Puritan only prospers and proselytes on opposition. But the Dutch of the present day are getting good returns for that investment of long ago. There are a dozen places in Holland, here and at Amsterdam and Leyden, visited by Americans every year because they are historic spots in connection with the Pilgrims. At each and every place the contribution-box is in sight, and the Dutch church or town which owns the property gets a handsome revenue. New England churches give liberally to the fixing up of the Dutch churches which can show a record of having been just once the place where some Puritan preached.
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Wooden shoes have not gone out of style in Holland. They are still worn generally in the country, and by the poorer children and men in the cities. They are cheap, which is a big recommendation to the Dutch. They are warm, said to be much warmer than leather. It does not hurt them to be wet, a very desirable feature in this water-soaked country. These are all good reasons, and as soon as you get used to the clatter and the apparent awkwardness you appreciate the fact that the “klompen,” as the Dutch call them, are a reasonable style for Holland. They are not worn in the house but dropped in the entryway, and house shoes or stocking feet go within. The Dutch farmer is proud of his clogs, paints them, carves them, and scrubs them. A man with idle time, like a fisherman, will often spend months decorating a pair of wooden shoes. They are considered a proper present from a young husband to his bride, and she will use them when scrubbing, which is a good part of the time. The shoes are generally made of poplar, and to the size of the foot. When the foot grows you can hollow out a little more shoe. Wooden shoes are as common here as overalls in America, and they will not grow less popular unless Holland goes dry--of which I see no indication.
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The farm-houses are usually built in connection with the barns, the family living in front and the stock and feed occupying the rear. This is rather customary in cold climates, and you must remember that Holland is farther north than Quebec. The winters get very cold and the canals and rivers freeze over. Skating is the great national sport. There does not seem to be much summer sport except scrubbing. All through the summer the people dig and weed and fertilize and prepare for market. The dikes and canals must be maintained and the best made of a short season. In the winter they can live with the pretty black-and-white cattle, the sheep and the horses, and have a good time.
Amsterdam, and Others
AMSTERDAM, July 27
This is the largest and most important city of Holland. It has about as much commerce as Rotterdam, and is longer on history, manufactures, art, and society. It was the first large city built up on a canal system, and its 600,000 population is a proof that something can be built out of nothing. Along about 1300 and 1400 it was a small town in a swamp. When the war for independence from Spain began, in 1656, Amsterdam profited by its location on the Zuyder Zee. The Spaniards ruined most of the rival towns and put an end to the commerce of Antwerp for a while, and Amsterdam received the mechanics and merchants fleeing from the soldiers of Alva. The name means a “dam,” or dike, on the Amstel river. The swamp was reclaimed from the water by dikes and drainage canals, but even now every house in the city must have its foundation on piles. The word dam, or its inclusion in a name, means just about what it does in English, provided you refer to the proper dam, not the improper damn. As nearly all of the Dutch towns are built on dam sites a great many of them are some-kind-of-a-dam. Amsterdam is built below the level of the sea, which is just beside it, and the water in the canals is pumped out by big engines and forced over the dike into the sea. If this were not done the water would come over the town site and Amsterdam would go back to swamp and not be worth a dam site.
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Amsterdam is the chief money market of Holland, and one of the financial capitals of the world. It is the place an American promoter makes for when he is out after the stuff with which to make the female horse travel. A large part of its business men are Jews, and their ability and wealth have maintained the credit of Dutch interests in all parts of the globe. At a time when the Jews were being persecuted nearly everywhere they were given liberty in Holland, and much of the country’s progress is due to that fact and to the religious toleration of all kinds of sects.
The canals run along nearly all the streets, and are filled with freight-boats from the country and from other cities. Thousands of these canal boats lie in the canals of Amsterdam and are the homes of the boatmen, who are the commerce carriers of Holland. Under our window is tied up a canal-boat which could carry as much freight as a dozen American box cars. The power is a sail or a pole or a man or a woman, whichever is most convenient. The boatman and his wife and ten or fifteen children, with a dog and a cat, live comfortably in one end, and we can watch them at their work and play. A dozen more such boats are lying in this block, some with steam engines and some with gasoline engines. The Standard Oil Company does a great business in Holland, and as usual is a great help to the people. It is introducing cheap power for canal-boats by means of proper engines, and in a short time will probably free the boatman and his wife from the pull-and-push system received from the good old days.
The canals are lined with big buildings, business and residence, mostly from four to six stories high, with the narrow, peaked and picturesque architecture made familiar to us by the pictures. All kinds of color are used and ornamented fronts are common. Imagine a street such as I describe and you have this one that is under our hotel window and which is the universal street scene of Amsterdam. Some one called this the Venice of the North, but to my mind it is prettier than Venice, although it lacks some of the oriental architecture and smell.
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Last night we went to the Rembrandt theatre to see “The Mikado,” in Dutch. Of course we could follow the music of the old-time friend, and the language made the play funnier than ever. The Dutch are not near so strong on music as are their German or French neighbors. They utilize compositions of other nations, and American airs are very common. The window of a large fine music store is playing up “Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?” A few Americans were at the big garden Krasnapolsky, listening to a really fine orchestra with an Austrian leader. We sent up a request for the American national air and it came promptly: “Whistling Rufus.” The Europeans think the cake-walk is something like a national dance in our country, and whenever they try to please us they turn loose one of our rag-time melodies. They do not mind chucking the “Georgia Campmeeting” or “Rings on My Fingers and Bells on My Toes,” into a program of Wagner and Tschudi and other composers whom we are taught at home to consider sacred.
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The most entertaining feature of the Amsterdam landscape that I have seen is a Dutch lady in a hobble skirt. The fashion is here all right, and it would make an American hobble appear tame and common. In the first place, the Dutch lady is not of the proper architecture, and in the second place, she still wears a lot more underskirts, or whatever they are, than are considered necessary in Paris or Hutchinson. But she does not expand the hobble. The shopping street of Amsterdam is filled with fashionably dressed Dutch ladies who look like tops, and who are worth coming a long ways to see. Far be it from me to criticize the freaks of female fashion. I never know what they are until after they are past due. But if the Dutch hobble ever reaches the American side of the Atlantic it will be time for the mere men to organize.
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The greatest art gallery in Europe is here, The Rijks Museum. I went to see it--once. I do not get the proper thrills from seeing a thousand pictures in thirty minutes. They make me tired. But Rembrandt’s Night Watch, or nearly anything a good Dutch artist has painted, is a real pleasure. The Dutch are recognizing their own modern art, and in that way they are going to distance the Italians. The Dutch artists are good at portraying people and common things, such as cats and dogs and ships. They are not strong in allegory or imaginative work, and you do not have to be educated up to enjoy them. And they run a little fun into their work occasionally, which would shock a Dago artist out of his temperament.
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Wages are higher in Holland than elsewhere in Europe. A street car conductor gets a dollar a day. Ordinary labor is paid sixty to eighty cents a day. Farm laborer about $15 per month, but boards himself. A good all-around hired girl is a dollar a week. Mechanics receive from one dollar to two dollars a day. The necessaries of life are not so high as with us. Vegetables are cheaper. Tobacco is much less. Meats are about as high. Clothing is cheaper, but our people wouldn’t wear it. Beer is two cents a glass and lemonade is five cents. The ordinary workingman lives on soup, vegetables, and very little meat; gets a new suit of clothes about once in five years, and takes his family to a garden for amusement, where they get all they want for ten cents. The Dutch citizen on foot is plain, honest, a little rude, but of good heart and very accommodating. I have not met the citizens in carriages and on horseback, who make up a very small part of the procession in Holland.
Cheeses and Bulbses
ALKMAAR, July 28.
Of course Holland is the greatest cheese country on earth, and Alkmaar is the biggest cheese market in Holland. Every Friday the cheesemakers of the district bring their product to the public market, and buyers, local and foreign, bargain for and purchase the cheeses. That is why we came to Alkmaar on Friday. The cheese market is certainly an interesting and novel sight. All over the big public square are piled little mounds of cheeses, shaped like large grape-fruit and colored in various shades of red and yellow. Each wholesaler has his carriers in uniform of white, and a straw hat and ribbons colored as a livery. When a sale is made, two carriers take a barrow which they carry suspended from their shoulders and with a sort of two-step and many cries to get out of the way they bring their load to the public weigh-house, where it is officially weighed. Then off the cheeses go to the store-rooms or to the canal-boats which line one side of the square, waiting to take their freight to the cities or to the sea. The farmers look over each other’s cheeses as they do hogs at the Kansas State Fair, with comments of praise or criticism. There is much chaffing and chaffering between them and the buyers. In about two hours the cheeses are gone, the square is empty and the beer-houses are full. The women-folks do not take an active part in the market, but they are present and looking things over, and I suspect they had been permitted to milk the cows and make the cheese.
About $3,000,000 worth of cheese is sold annually in the Alkmaar market. The country round about, North Holland, is all small farms, with gardens and pastures and little herds of the black-and-white cattle. The cheese wholesales at about 60 cents a cheese, and in America we pay about twice that much for the same, or for the Edam, which is like it. The farmers look prosperous, drive good horses and very substantial gaily painted wagons.
Alkmaar has 18,000 population, and is therefore about the size of Hutchinson. But it is a good deal older. Back in 1573 it successfully defended itself against the Spaniards. The name means “all sea,” because the country was originally covered with water. The land is kept above the water now by pumping and pouring into canals which are higher than the farms through which they flow. This is done very systematically and by windmills. A district thus maintained is called a “polder,” something like our irrigation district, and on one of them near Alkmaar, about the size of a Kansas township, six miles square, there are 51 windmills working all the time, pumping the water. These are not little windmills like those in a Kansas pasture, but great fellows with big arms fifty feet long, and they stand out over the polder like so many giants. The picture of these mills in a most fertile garden-spot, with canal streaks here and there and boats on the canals looming up above the land, is certainly a striking one. And it shows clearly what energy can do when properly applied.
The soil is as sandy as in South Hutchinson. But dirt and fertilizer are brought from the back country and the soil is kept constantly renewed. It seems to me that with comparatively little work the sandy soil of the Arkansas valley can be made into a market garden, producing many times its present value, whenever our people take it into their heads to manufacture their own soil and apply water when needed and not just when it rains. That time will come, but probably not until a dense population forces a great increase in production.
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I have another idea. Along the coast of Holland are the “sand dunes,” which are exactly like our sand hills. What we should do is to change the name from sand hills to “dunes,” brag about them and charge people for visiting them. The city of Amsterdam gets its supply of drinking-water from the dunes. This was important news to me, for it confirmed my theory as to the similarity of the dunes and the sand hills, and also suggested that somebody in Amsterdam used water for drinking purposes, a fact I had not noticed while there.
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We spent part of a day in Haarlem, where the tulips come from. The soil conditions are like those at Alkmaar, but the country is a mass of nurseries, flower gardens, and beautiful growing plants. We are out of season for tulips, but this is the time when the bulbs are being collected and dried to be shipped in all directions. Not only tulips but crocuses, hyacinths, lilies, anemones, etc., are raised for the market,--cut flowers to the cities, bulbs to all parts of the world. Just now the gardens are filled with phlox, dahlias, larkspurs, nasturtiums,--by the acre. The flowers are about the same as at home. Out of this thin, scraggly, sandy soil the gardeners of North Holland are taking money for flowers and bulbs faster than miners in gold-fields. With flowers and cheeses these Dutch catch about all kinds of people.
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Haarlem is the capital of the province of North Holland, and is full of quaint houses of ancient architecture. It was one of the hot towns for independence when the war with Spain began. The Spaniards besieged it, and after a seven months gallant defense, in which even the women fought as soldiers, the town surrendered under promise of clemency. The Spaniards broke their promise and put to death the entire garrison and nearly all the townspeople. This outrage so incensed the Dutch in other places that the war was fought more bitterly than before, and the crime--for such it was--really aided in the final expulsion of the Spaniards.
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Along in the seventeenth century was the big boom in Haarlem. The tulip mania developed and bulbs sold for thousands of dollars. Capitalists engaged in the speculation and the trade went into big figures. Millions of dollars were spent for the bulbs, and so long as the demand and the market continued every tulip-raiser was rich. Finally the reaction came, as it always does to a boom, and everybody went broke. A bulb which sold for $5,000 one year was not worth 50 cents the next. The government added to the confusion by decreeing that all contracts for future deliveries were illegal. The usual phenomenon of a panic followed, everybody losing and nobody gaining. A hundred years later there was about the same kind of a boom in hyacinths, and the same result. It will be observed that the Dutch are not so much unlike Americans when it comes to booms, only it takes longer for them to forget and calls for more experience.
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Frans Hals, a great Dutch painter, almost next to Rembrandt, was born in Haarlem, and a number of his pictures are in the city building. It was customary in those days for the mayor and city council to have a group picture painted and hung in the town hall. This was the way most of the Dutch artists got their start, for the officials were always wealthy citizens who were willing to pay more for their own pictures than for studies of nature or allegory. I wonder if the officials paid their own money or did they voucher it through the city treasury and charge it to sprinkling or street work?