It comes with ill grace from us, however, to condemn the Englishman when to-day Uncle Sam is standing on the Pacific Slope expanding his chest toward Hawaii.  But if we cannot condemn with good grace, there is no need to praise English aggressiveness and acquisitiveness overmuch; what we do need to praise and cultivate is the Dutch virtue of holding fast our own.  We have institutions and principles, rights and privileges, in this country which are constantly attacked, and the need of America is that the backbone which the Dutch have given to this country should assert itself.  Hospitality loses its virtue when it means the destruction of the Lares and Penates of our own firesides.  When a guest insists on sitting at the head of the table, then it is time for the host to become hostis.  What America needs in this new year of grace is not less hospitality toward friends but more hostility toward intruders.

The spirit of this age is iconoclastic.  It seeks to destroy sacred memorials, hallowed associations, holy shrines, everything that tells of the faith and the worship of a God-fearing past.  The spirit of the age is irreverent, destructive, faithless.  Against this and all despoiling forces we as patriots are called to arms.  For what does America stand?  What are the truths that have gone into her blood and made her strong and beautiful and dominant?  The divineness of human rights, the claims of men superior to the claims of property; popular government—­not an oligarchy; popular government—­not a dictatorship; the sacredness of the home, the holiness of the sanctuary, faith in humanity, faith in God.  These have made America, and without these there can be no America.  And because they are attacked, gentlemen, the need of the hour is a patriotism that shall breathe forth the spirit of the people who above all others in history have known how to keep their land, their honor, and their faith.  The mission of little Holland will never be ended so long as America needs the inspiration of her glorious example, and the devoted citizenship of her loving sons.

OPIE P. READ

MODERN FICTION

[Speech of Opie P. Read at the eighty-second dinner of the Sunset Club, Chicago, Ill., January 31, 1895.  The general subject of the evening’s discussion was “The Tendency and Influence of Modern Fiction.”  The chairman of the evening, Arthur W. Underwood, said in introducing Mr. Read, “It is very seldom that the Sunset Club discharges its speakers in batteries of four, but something is due to the speakers.  Four barrels is a light load, I am told, for a Kentucky colonel, and I have the pleasure of introducing the original ‘Kentucky Colonel,’ Mr. Opie P. Read.”]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:—­The drift of latter-day fiction is largely shown by the department store.  The selling of books by the ton proves a return to the extremes of romanticism.  People