~ Theodore Roosevelt On Being An American ~

I so love sharing history ... it is so fascinating & to learn more than we may have not been taught or missed or just didn't absorb.

Four year old "Teedie" Theodore Roosevelt in 1862.

This 1903 photo shows the President, his wife Edith and their six children at the family home of Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay on Long Island, New York. TR loved his family and spent hours roaming the hills and rowing the shores with the children.

Theodore Roosevelt in 1916.

These words come from a letter that was written shortly before Colonel/President Roosevelt’s death in January of 1919.

'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.'

*The whole text can be viewed on a google search, if you would like to learn more.