A reprint of statements made by President Theodore Roosevelt regarding immigration and what it means to be an American ring true as the debate rages on today.
Roosevelt often voiced his support for having immigrants deciding to call America their home assimilate quickly, learn the English language, dispense with hyphenated nomenclature (i.e. German-American), and declare that their primary national allegiance is to the United States.
If he were alive today, Roosevelt would most certainly be infuriated to see Mexican flags flown by illegals at every turn.
“We have room for but one flag, the American flag,” he said. “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.”
Democrats view such ideas as ghastly, though most Americans would likely agree with Roosevelt’s sentiments.
“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,” Roosevelt declared.
“But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American.”
At another speech in 2016, Roosevelt explained that immigrants should have American interests in their minds first and foremost.
“Let us say to the immigrant not that we hope he will learn English, but that he has got to learn it,” he stated. “Let the immigrant who does not learn it go back. He has got to consider the interest of the United States or he should not stay here.”
Holy cow, can you even imagine a President today saying immigrants have to put America first, should learn the English language, and should dispense with any loyalties to their previous home country? Oh wait, we’ve actually seen that with President Trump, and the media has responded by painting him as a xenophobic hater of immigrants.
You know who else felt this way at one point? Barack Obama.
“When I see Mexican flags waved at pro-immigration demonstrations,” he wrote in his book, The Audacity of Hope, “I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment.”
He also wasn’t a fan of non-English speaking immigrants, writing “When I’m forced to use a translator to communicate with the guy fixing my car, I feel a certain frustration.”
How far has the Democrats’ Overton Window shifted on immigration?
In 2006, a man named Barack Obama wrote this: pic.twitter.com/xq8MSR4XxF
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 23, 2018
Of course, nearly all of today’s prominent Democrats have once held views in which they were hawks for legal immigration.
Another area that Roosevelt differed with today’s coddlers of illegal immigrants – he thought they should work hard to lift themselves up, not rest in the hammock of government assistance.
“We must in every way possible encourage the immigrant to rise, help him up, give him a chance to help himself,” he said. But “if we try to carry him he may well prove not well worth carrying.”
Teddy had it so right indeed.
