It was the early Emperors of Germany proper who
quelled these barbarians; in their time Dane and Norseman and Magyar
became Christians, and most of the Slav peoples as well, so that
Europe began to take on a shape which we can recognize to-day. Since
then the centuries have rolled by, with strange alternations of
fortune, now well-nigh barren, and again great with German achievement
in arms and in government, in science and the arts. The centre of
power shifted hither and thither within German lands; the great house
of Hohenzollern rose, the house which has at last seen Germany spring
into a commanding position in the very forefront among the nations of
mankind.
To this ancient land, with its glorious past and splendid present, to
this land of many memories and of eager hopes, I come from a young
nation, which is by blood akin to, and yet different from, each of the
great nations of Middle and Western Europe; which has inherited or
acquired much from each, but is changing and developing every
inheritance and acquisition into something new and strange. The German
strain in our blood is large, for almost from the beginning there has
been a large German element among the successive waves of newcomers
whose children's children have been and are being fused into the
American nation; and I myself trace my origin to that branch of the
Low Dutch stock which raised Holland out of the North Sea.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120