Where do I find Teddy Roosevelts 1907 speach on immigration?
Answer:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tr...
Largely an urban myth and misconception, the comments most people attribute to a "1907 speech" come from letters written later in his life.
BTW, if you Google: Roosevelt immigration speech you would've found 829,000 answers to your question...
Teddy rocks.
Why not try looking in a book. It was where people used to find information before the internet made laziness something to be proud of.
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:1ec...
http://www.voteswagon.com/2006/05/08/rev...
Log onto to http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tr...
There was no 1907 speech on immigration. The quoted material from the e-mail in question is actually from a letter Roosevelt wrote on January 3, 1919, three days before his death--about the time of another rise in anti-immigration feeling similar to today's, except it was directed against German and Jewish immigrants. Roosevelt--who had made previous statements on a similar vein in the years after his retirement as President--was not ad ovating a policy hostile to immigrants, but simply that newcomers should be expected to assimilate into society and learn English.
I don't know the background of the e-mail rumour, but I suspect it was started by someone in an attempt to inflame passions against immigrants by taking the remarks of a noted historical figure completely out of context.
Nearly 100 years ago President Theodore Roosevelt hit the nail on the head when it came to immigration.
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith, becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality 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 person’s becoming in every facet 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… 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, 1907
http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/...
corrected and
Added info
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Myth Blaster Verdict: True, in so far as the speech/written words by Theodore Roosevelt; however the date 1907 is incorrect. The words come from a letter that was written shortly before Colonel/President Roosevelt’s death in January of 1919.
Snopes entry:
Theodore Roosevelt was about to finish his first two-year term as governor of the state of New York when the Republican Party chose him as its candidate for Vice-President in the 1900 national election. The Republicans were victorious at the ballot box that year, but Roosevelt held the vice-presidency for less than a year before he was elevated to the White House upon the assassination of President William McKinley on 14 September 1901, thereby becoming the youngest person ever to hold the office of President of the United States. Roosevelt was elected to a full term as president in 1904, and among his many notable achievements was his selection as a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for his part in the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Although Roosevelt did not hold public office again after leaving the presidency in 1909 (his efforts to regain the White House as a third party candidate in 1912 proving unsuccessful), he remained active in the public political sphere; in the waning years of his life, as World War I raged in Europe and America entered the conflict on the side of the Allies, he frequently spoke of his belief that immigrants taking up residence in the U.S. should assimilate into American society as quickly as possible, learn the English language, eschew hyphenated national identities (e.g., “Italian-American”) and declare their primary national allegiance to the United States of America. On 1 February 1916, for example,
Roosevelt advocated measures for strengthening and ensuring the “loyalty” of American immigrants: Theodore Roosevelt, speaking at a luncheon given yesterday by Mrs. Vincent Astor for the National Americanization Committee in the Astor Court Building, declared that one of the reasons why many German-Americans have shown greater love for their native land that for their adopted country is that the German system demands greater loyalty than is demanded in this country, and a greater contribution to the common welfare. “And all of you know I am free from a taint of neutrality,” he added, “so I can say this without suspicion.”
The encouragement of better housing conditions and a compulsion to learn the English language, Colonel Roosevelt said, would help the process of Americanization.
… A few months later, Roosevelt expanded on this theme in a series of Memorial Day speeches he delivered in St. Louis:
Moral treason to the United States was charged by Mr. Roosevelt, in an address delivered before the City Club, against German-Americans who seek to make their governmental representatives act in the interests of Germany rather than this country. He characterized the German-American Alliance as “an anti-American alliance,” but added that he believed that its members “not only do not represent but scandalously misrepresent” the great majority of real Americans of German origin. Using the motto “America for Americans” for all Americans, whether they were born here or abroad, the former President declared that “the salvation of our people lies in having a nationalized and unified America, ready for the tremendous tasks of both war and peace.” “I appeal to all our citizens,” the colonel said, “no matter from what land their forefathers came, to keep this ever in mind, and to shun with scorn and contempt the sinister intriguers and mischief makers who would seek to divide them along lines of creed, or birthplace or of national origin.”
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