Posted on 08/17/2005 1:00:45 PM PDT by infocats
... There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.
The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.............
We could use this man in the Whitehouse again.
Swell.
Now I suppose the ACLU will demand that his likeness be jackhammered off Mount Rushmore.
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
-- Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), Kansas City Star (April 27, 1918).
Today..we just call them RINO, RATS & "Girlie-men".
That's pretty difficult when foreigners insist on bringing and practicing their antagonistic, pagan religions with them under the mistaken notion that the American Constitution protects any and every "religion" in the world.
There is very little that is new in American politics.
bump
Amen
Let me guess; your religion IS protected by the Constitution, right?
You should try reading the entire article before commenting and tasting your own shoe leather (which you are undoubtedly used to doing and probably no longer dislike the taste).
From the article: "All of us, no matter from what land our parents came, no matter in what way we may severally worship our Creator, must stand shoulder to shoulder in a united America for the elimination of race and religious prejudice."
That is so true. Reading about our founders and the issues they argued over is like reading a newspaper today (e.g., powerful central government vs limited gov).
On the lighter side of it, around Preakness time, the horse racing industry was doing its usual, give us money and tax breaks or our industry will go under. It also happened to be the centennial observation of the Baltimore fire. The Sun reprinted a page from the day after the fire, and what was in there, you guessed it, an article bemoaning the fact that with subsidies the horse racing industry in MD would disappear.
Our oath of allegiance is quite specific in that it requires new citizens to:
" -- renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;
that I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; --- "
Oath of Allegiance
Address:http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/citizenship/blcitizen-4.htm
Every citizen of the USA in effect has sworn that:
"--- I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; --- ".
-- Far to many 'forget' that there are domestic enemies of our Constitution, and that sometimes their own words make them into that enemy.
-- And when they speak those words, -- it is our right, and our duty, to counter those constitutionally repugnant words & ideas; and to defend against them.
Irish and German Americans were vocal in their opposition to America joining the Allies. Germans for the sake of their old country and the Irish because of England's role in Ireland. TR saw this as a danger to what he believed was a necessary American involvement in the Great War. So he attacked the concept of hyphenated Americans as those who felt America should make policy decisions based on how they would help or hurt their homeland.
Now we think of the idea of hyphenated Americans in terms of people demanding separation and special treatment for their culture. That was not the meaning 90 years ago.
"He spoke these words to a meeting of the Knights of Columbus, the well known Catholic men's group. At the time this group was mostly made up of Irish and German American Catholics, as Italian and Polish Catholics were still in their first generation."
That makes this even gutsier! He said it to the faces of the people he was talking about. What balls!
My own german ancestors had lived in german speaking communities in Pennsylvania. About the time of TR's presidency, they quit speaking German in the home, and switched to English.
Sean Hannity? I was listening too and happened to be in front of the computer so I Googled "hyphenated americans", went to the website, and then posted!
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