By Mary Powell

Teddy Roosevelt Hit the Nail on the Head

My mother is quite the senior citizen. She helps out at the Senior Center where she lives and she is pretty tech savvy when it comes to email. In fact, she is downright terrible about sending me stuff that is really tacky and very embarrassing for me. I guess she is at the point in her life when she has no inhibitions. But I must say this last email she sent had some meat and potatoes about it and I have checked it out and it appears to be truthful as far as who said it, so I felt obliged to post it and say nothing more.
President Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech in 1907 and this is the content of what he said and I agree 200%. I felt obliged to highlight some important points.
‘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

I will write about immigration sometime when I am in a better mood, but I think Teddy hit the nail on the head on this one.

 

Happy Trails,
The Barnyard Mare

The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author. These views and opinions do not represent those of SalinaPost.com, and/or any/all contributors to this site.