Part 5

The Dutch are proverbially honest. Of course I have been over-charged some, but I have never been anywhere on either side of the Atlantic where the rule was not observed, “he was a stranger and I took him in.” They hold a visitor up much more in Kansas City than in Amsterdam, and a man from Kansas who goes to New York is not even given the protection of the game laws. In fact, a stranger who does not know the language is treated much better in Europe than in America. I have often had a man walk half a block to show me the way when I could not understand his words. I say “walk a block,” but there is no such phrase in Dutch. There are no regular sized blocks, so a direction is given as “five minutes” or “two minutes, then to the right three minutes.” That is supposed to mean an average walk; but as legs differ in size and rapidity it is often confusing. I am told in the rural districts a distance is given as so many smokes, meaning the number of pipefuls of tobacco that a Dutchman would consume in going that far. But I have discovered that in Holland a pipe is a rarity. The men smoke cigars and smoke them incessantly. They are cheap. I get a good cigar, equivalent to a Tom Moore, for two cents American money. When I buy cigars I want to stay in Holland. But practically everything except cigars, beer and wooden shoes costs as much here as in the United States. Yes, there is one thing that costs less, and that is labor. Therefore hand-carved wood, hand-crocheted lace, hand-made shoes, tailored clothes, and houses are less expensive than with us. The more I see of a country where everything labor produces is cheap, the more I am in favor of high prices and good wages. Holland is probably the best country in Europe for a laboring man, but I don’t see how one can get ahead, unless he does without meat and wears the same suit for years, and his family economize the same way. Here in the land of cheese and butter, both articles are out of reach and the workingman uses “margarine.”

But now it is goodby to the land of the dikes, the canals, the windmills and the wooden shoes. They are all here as advertised, and they color the lives of the people as they do the landscape of the country. To the eye they are artistic and beautiful, but in practice they are common, plain necessities, and in these signs the Dutch have conquered.

The Great River

KOENIGSWINTER, GERMANY, August 7.

The river Rhine is in many respects the greatest river in the world. It is greatest in commercial importance, historical interest and artistic development. It has been the line of battle in Europe for centuries, since Cæsar first crossed the stream and met the original Germans. After that time it was the frontier of the Roman empire until Rome fell, and then it became the object for which Europe fought. The Germans and the French met on the Rhine, the other “civilized countries” got in the game, and the valley was filled with feudal counts and princes who sometimes took one side and sometimes the other, whichever seemed to offer them the best pickings. The broad and deep stream was a highway of commerce, and the old champions of chivalry, with whom robbery and murder were the principal business, built castles on the hills, and whenever they saw a merchant with a rich caravan of goods, down they would swoop on him, grab his valuables and kill the defenders. These adventures and wars were what the world called history, and during the Middle Ages the place where hell was continually breaking out was along this beautiful valley. The use of gunpowder finally put an end to knights in armor, and the Germans and the French struggled for the Rhine. Napoleon conquered the valley, organized it into a republic, and finally annexed it to France. The Allies conquered Napoleon and restored the Prussian king and the petty princes to their possessions. The war of 1870 between Germany and France pushed the boundary a considerable distance west, and made the Rhine valley all German, under the newly organized empire.

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Most rivers begin in a small way, from springs, creeks and little streams. The Rhine is the outlet of Lake Constance, and rushes out of that inland sea a great river ready-made, and begins with a magnificent waterfall second only to Niagara. It is a wide, deep river, and as soon as it emerges from the Swiss mountains becomes the great highway through Germany and Holland to the ocean. Along its banks are timber, coal and iron, great cities with factories, and fertile lands tilled to the utmost point. The freight rate is the lowest possible, and the productive value of the country is increased by the ease and cheapness with which the markets of the world are reached. Steamboats and barges go up and down in much greater numbers than do the freight trains of America’s greatest railroad. For much of its length the banks are walled, and the cities, towns and villages are almost continuous. In width the river is from 500 to 1500 feet, and it is about 550 miles long. The last 360 miles, from Manheim to the German ocean, has a channel of not less than thirty feet in depth, and in that 360 miles the fall is only 280 feet, the last hundred miles only 33 feet.

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So much for the Rhine from a business viewpoint. This little town of Koenigswinter is on “the picturesque Rhine,” at the foot of the Drachenfels, the last of the big hills or mountains by which the Rhine flows in its course from Manheim to Cologne. We stopped at the little city of Bonn, seat of a good university, and an old town. Beethoven was born in Bonn, and we visited the little house he selected for that event in his life. It was most interesting to see the things used by the great composer, among them the original drafts of many of his great works. Beethoven’s folks were poor, and when only a boy he played the pipe organ at the church and was in the Bonn string band. When 22 years of age he went to Vienna, where he was taken care of financially by the Austrian emperor. He never married. He and a countess fell in love with each other, but her folks did not approve of her marrying a musician. Beethoven’s father sang tenor and his grandfather had led the Bonn brass band, and Beethoven himself was giving lessons. So they could not marry, though I don’t see why the countess did not arrange it later when Beethoven became famous. But he was very deaf and probably very cranky, for he was a great musician, and perhaps the Lady Amelia backed out herself.

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This is what is called the picturesque Rhine, for here the river runs through some German mountains, which rise almost abruptly from the banks. The mountain-sides are cultivated as we do first-bottom land. The principal product is the grape, which gets just the proper sunlight on these mountain-sides to make its juice command more money than the wine from the back country. There are also many truck farms, small pastures, patches of alfalfa and wheat, all tilted up from the river at an angle of 45 to 90 degrees. The roads are good and white, the fields just now are green, the sky is a blue like the sky in Italy and Kansas. The little towns with their white-washed houses and red-tiled roofs cluster every mile or so along the river, and the view from the mountains or from the river is one that makes the tickle come around the heart. In this beautiful spot where nature and man have both been busy for so many hundred years we are spending a few days for rest.

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Of course I climbed the Drachenfels, the mountain which looms up like a sentinel and has on its top a ruined castle with a view and a legend. Byron told of the great view, and every tourist who stops has to climb the mountain. So we climbed. Mr. Byron was right this time, for the view is grand. Ordinarily I take little stock in Byron’s fits over scenery. He traveled through Europe and had thrills over some very ordinary things. Byron could take a few drinks and then reel off some verses which gave an old ruin or a tumble-down castle a reputation which it will use forever as a bait for tourists. But this time Byron was right, for the panorama of the Rhine valley, made up of the river, the hills, the sky, the shades of growing green, the white-and-red towns, and the boats as noiseless as birds, is one worth more than the twenty-five American cents it takes to make the climb on a cog-wheel railroad.

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The ruined castle, which stands about 1,000 feet above the Rhine and yet so near it seems that one could throw a stone from the parapet into the river, was occupied by a line of the fiercest gentlemen that ever robbed an innocent traveler. For several hundred years no one was safe to go this way unless he paid the robber barons, who had a sort of confederacy or union, in which the Count of Drachenfels was one of the main guys. The name means the dragon’s rock, and comes from the fact that a Dragon once resided in a cave near the top. The legend says that it was customary among the old heathen to feed prisoners to the Dragon, so he would look pleasant and not roar at night. Returning from a trip into the west they brought a number of captives, among them a beautiful Christian maiden. The heathen young men all wanted the girl, so the wise chief decided that she should be given to the Dragon, thus preventing a scrap among the brethren and paying special tribute to the Drag. They formed a procession and marched to the big rock where they were accustomed to lay out provisions for his nibs. The beautiful girl was bound hand and foot, covered with flowers, and then the crowd got back to see the Dragon do the rest. The Dragon came out roaring like a stuck pig, but when the girl held out a crucifix toward him he bolted, ran and jumped from the rock into the river. The best-looking young man among the heathen then rushed forward and released the lady, married her, and they lived happily ever afterward,--so the legend says. And there is no reason to doubt the legend, for there is the rock, there is the river into which the Dragon leaped, and he never did come back.

Along the Rhine

KOENIGSWINTER, August 8.

Next to riding on a Dutch canal comes a trip on the Rhine. The passenger steamers and motor-boats go up and down this part of the Rhine like street cars. Every boat is comfortably equipped with refreshment parlors and restaurants, and the waiters keep trying to please the thirsty traveler by offering him wine and beer. It is hard on a Kansan. What these Germans need is a governor and an attorney-general and a row over the joint question. Poor Germans! they do not know it, and they keep right on drinking beer and growing fat and looking happy. Aside from this unfortunate habit, which does not seem to hurt them as it ought to, the Germans are a fine lot of folks. They are immensely proud of their country, which is a trifle hard on us modest Americans. They really believe Germany can lick the world, and they have a notion that there is no nation so progressive as theirs. In some respects they are right, and in many phases of business and scientific advancement the Germans lead the world.

I am inclined to attribute this to their public-school system, which is superior to ours in some respects. Without going into an extended argument on the subject, I will explain my reason for this opinion. The German system of education is very rigid for the boys and girls. The discipline in the common schools is military. The children go to school more months in the year and they are compelled to learn. There is no foolishness, no excuses from fond parents, no late parties, no indifference, no any-thing-to-get-through. The German teachers are not content with getting the children to pass, but they insist they shall _know_ their studies. This severe training is kept up until the boy or girl goes to the university, and then discipline is relaxed and he or she can do about as they please so far as personal conduct is concerned. In America the parents and the government let the little folks do as they please outside of short school hours, and then tighten up the in high school and university. Our scheme doesn’t work well. Our grade schools turn out indifferent scholars and boys and girls who have not been trained to study. Our course of study is fixed to make it easy, when every one knows that hard work is needed to develop character. If the Germans go ahead of the Americans in the next generation it will be because their school system is better than ours, because it trains the children better for the work to come. The Germans think just as much of their children as do the Americans of theirs, but they do not spoil them,--which is a great American fault and which counts against the children ever afterward.

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We rode on the boat to Godesberg, and Rolandseck and Heisterbach, and Johannisberg, and Niersteiner, and all the other places which are recorded on the wine-card at a Kansas City hotel. The very names are enough to make a Kansas man file an information with the county attorney. Each town has its brand of wine, its old castles, its flourishing business, its comfortable hotels, and its legends of olden times. Most of the legends tell of the triumph of True Love, but here is an exception:

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An old knight whose castle at Schoenberg was an important place in the feudal system of tax collection, had seven beautiful daughters. He died; these seven girls ruled in the castle, and all they cared for was a good time. They went hunting, gave late supper parties, and were much talked about; but their beauty and the castle of their inheritance kept them popular with the men. Many knights asked them to marry, but each and every suitor was given the merry ha-ha by the maiden he sought. Knights even fought and killed each other, disputing as to the merits of the sisters, and the ladies made such funerals the scenes of great enjoyment. Finally the knights had a mass meeting, and resolved that the seven sisters be required to select husbands. When this news was conveyed to the sisters they said this was just what they wanted. They proposed that they would give a picnic, to which all the would-be husbands should be invited, and after lunch they would announce the knights of their choice. The picnic day came, and it rained in the morning as it always does on picnic days. The knights came with their swords and their lunch-baskets and stood around throwing balls for the cigars and shaking for the lemonade, until the skies cleared and it was announced that the seven sisters would be in at once or as soon as they had finished dressing. Then came another hour’s wait. Suddenly a boat appeared around the bend, and in it were the Seven, all decked out with big hats and rhinestone buckles. The eldest sister stood up in the boat, screaming as it rocked, and said: “We don’t care to marry any of you country jakes. We are going to Cologne to visit a cousin, and there we propose to have a good time without being obliged to throw down some knight who wants a bride and a meal ticket every so often.” The other sisters joined in singing the old-time version of “Goodby, my lover, goodby,” and the boat sailed for Cologne. The knights cussed, and laid the blame onto each other; but suddenly a storm arose, and the boat began to bob around in the waves. The seven sisters screamed, but it did them no good. The boat upset, and all on board were drowned.

This legend teaches flirtatious young ladies not to trifle with the home boys.

On the spot where the boat went under, seven pointed rocks appear above the surface of the water even up to today. I saw them, and I guess that proves the legend.

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I have always believed that Kansas people make a mistake in neglecting the legend crop. For example, a good legend about Elmdale Park in Hutchinson would cause thousands of people to visit it and pay 10 cents apiece, besides buying post-cards and printed copies of the beautiful story, which might go something like this:

Once upon a time there lived in the First Ward a man and his wife who had an only daughter. They were the only father and mother she had, so honors were about even on that point. They loved this Daughter so much that when she grew up she was not taught to sew or to cook, but to play the piano and to sing “Love Me and the World is Mine.” She was very beautiful as she sat on the front porch reading the latest novel, “The Soul of My Soul,” while her mother fried the beefsteak for supper. Suitors came from far and near, one of them a brakeman on the Missouri Pacific, and another an assistant chief clerk in a hash foundry. But her choice fell upon a handsome young knight she met at Elmdale Park, who wore an open-faced vest and a Brazilian diamond on his shirt front, but who had quit school in order to go to work and then forgot about it. He saw the clean home and he smelled the fried steak and thought the young lady did it all, when in fact the young lady could not boil an egg. They were married, and he at once came to live with his wife’s folks. The old Father developed an unexpected trait, and insisted that the Bridegroom should pay board, which he proudly refused to do, took his bride and went to Wichita. There he was offered a position as chamber-maid in a livery stable and the Girl found it necessary at odd times to do the laundry work for a small boarding-house. Thus they lived for nearly two years, when she borrowed a postage stamp and wrote home: “I have a Divorce and two children.” The father and mother promptly sent her enough money to pay her fare, and she returned to the castle of her childhood. But she had learned a lesson. The next time she got married she did not pick up a friend in Elmdale Park, but made him show her his bank book and his receipt for dues in the Modern Woodmen. At the place in Elmdale Park where she met her first soul-mate she planted a cottonwood tree, which is there yet, and under its shade lovers now meet, remember this legend and buy post-cards which tell the story.

In German Towns

COLOGNE, GERMANY, August 9.

This is the big town of the lower Rhine country in Germany, though it has rivals which may sometime take the title away. It is also the old town, and there have been many hot times in its history. It was started in the first century of the Christian era as a colony by Aggripina, the mother of Nero, and a lot of Roman soldiers were given extra rights for settling in the new town. A couple of hundred years later a bridge was built across the Rhine, and Cologne became of commercial importance. When Christianity was extended to this section it was made the seat of a bishop and then of an archbishop. It grew rapidly and was independent in its tendencies, so when the break-up came of the old Roman empire it became a free city, and with some bossing by the archbishop the people ruled, that is, the wealthier and more important, a sort of aristocracy. Napoleon annexed Cologne to France, but when he was overthrown the city was handed over to the king of Prussia, and it has been Prussian ever since. In the last hundred years Cologne has developed as the great jobbing and commercial city of this section. It is full of quaint old houses, narrow streets, medieval architecture, and has the best cathedral in Europe. Dutch and German cathedrals are generally Protestant, but the Cologne cathedral is Catholic. When the Reformation came the Lutherans especially enjoyed capturing a cathedral, tearing down the images and statues, destroying all the artistic beauty they could, and making the house of God as plain and uncomfortable as possible. On the other hand, the Catholics believed in beautifying and adorning their churches. The present-day Protestants doubtless wish their predecessors had been less zealous and that the beautiful decorations and paintings had not been defaced by whitewash. The Cologne cathedral is the finest specimen of Gothic architecture in the world. Of course it is in the shape of a cross, and is 157 yards long, 94 yards wide, 201 feet to the roof, 357 feet to the tower over the center, and the towers are 515 feet high. These figures give no idea of the impressive and imposing interior; and the exterior, which is a profusion of turrets, gargoyles, cornices, galleries and other decorations, makes the visitor catch his breath as he looks at this great structure. The foundation of this cathedral was laid in 1248 and the work was completed thirty years ago; so there was no rush about the job.

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Twenty-five miles below Cologne is Düsseldorf, also on the Rhine, and the place where the iron and coal development of Germany seeks its market. You know what iron and coal did for Pittsburg, and it is the same with Düsseldorf. It is the growing city of the section, and threatens to pass Cologne. As Düsseldorf is largely modern, having developed since the days of railroads and steel bridges, it has wide streets, beautiful buildings, and its architecture is of the present generation. Düsseldorf is noted for its municipal ownership, and is often called a model city. The town owns the street cars, the light system, the docks on the river, the water plant, a pawn-shop and a lot of other things, including a couple of breweries. Municipal ownership comes easier in the Old World than in the New. It was formerly the custom of the government to own everything, and to lay out parks and provide utilities for the people, who were then too poor to do much themselves. So the modern European government, which is largely popular, succeeds to the power of the ancient monarchical rule, and provides the big things for the people. A strong-handed ruler who can condemn private property, and wisely put the good of the entire community above the property and welfare of individuals, does these public works much better than our own municipal governments, which have restricted powers and which have to do what the people want rather than tell the people what they ought to do. Generally speaking the public ownership of utilities is a good thing, provided the government has the power and the integrity to do the business right. Düsseldorf has a mayor and twelve salaried aldermen, a common council of 56 members, and over 5,000 city employés.

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