President Theodore Roosevelt






"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 wrote those words in a letter to the president of the American Defense Society on January 3, 1919, three days before his death.

President Roosevelt spoke out frequently against "hyphenated Americans" and the prospect of a nation "brought to ruins" by a "tangle of squabbling nationalities."

He also advocated the compulsory learning of English by every naturalized citizen. "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."

He insisted, on numerous occasions, that America has no room for "fifty-fifty allegiance." In a 1917 speech he said, "It is our boast that we admit the immigrant to full fellowship and equality with the native-born. In return we demand that he shall share our undivided allegiance to the one flag which floats over all of us."