Quote from Theodore Roosevelt about Immigration
It's a quote from 1907 that was written in a letter by then former president Roosevelt on January 3, 1919 to the president of the American Defense Society. It was read publicly at a meeting on January 5, 1919. Roosevelt died the next day, on January 6, 1919
Teddy Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States and the youngest to ever occupy the Oval Office. He was Vice President to President William McKinley when in 1901 McKinley was assassinated the Roosevelt took over at age 42. (At age 43 President John F. Kennedy was the youngest to ever be elected President.)
| "In the first place we should insist that the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equity with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming an American and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to the American Defense Society in 1919. "Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or to leave the country," he said in a statement to the Kansas City Star in 1918. "English should be the only language taught or used in the public schools." “We can have no "50-50" allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.” |