Teddy Roosevelt and the White Race

All great men give one mixed feelings — Napoleon, Charlemagne, Lincoln, Churchill, and, of course Teddy Roosevelt.  I've often wondered if he'd gotten out of the way in 1912, and let Taft be re-elected, we might have somehow avoided WWI.  We'll never know.  And TR did a lot of things called 'progressive' that can be argued about at great length.  But he wasn't much like the bozos who call themselves 'progressives' today.  His attitude about immigration sounds like what would be called crazy right-wing stuff today.  He wrote:

"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."

It's fairly well known that he thought that way, as that quote has been going around in e-mail for quite awhile (don't worry — it's been pronounced authentic by "Snopes"), but I was surprised to hear that he was concerned, way back then, that the White race in America would dwindle and be replaced.  He took a Dutch Uncle attitude about it, appropriately enough, saying that if we didn't care enough to reproduce ourselves, we deserved to be supplanted by another race.  Read his quote and more stuff on the subject HERE.