Taken from “Life and work of Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Edition” By Thomas H. Russell, LL.D. Page 367 & 368
His final Message;
On Saturday, January 4, he dictated a message, which was read at a meeting of the American Defense Society at the Hippodrome, New York, on Sunday night, a few hours before he died. In this message he phrased a fresh the thoughts that had been burning in his mind, and this was his last ringing message to the American People:
“There must be no sagging back in the fight for Americanism, merely because the war is over. There are plenty of persons who have already made the assertion that they believe the American people have a short memory and that they intend to revive all the foreign associations, which most directly interfere with the complete Americanization of our people.
“Our principle in this matter should be simple. 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 man’s becoming in fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America then he isn’t doing his part as 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, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation or which we are hostile.
“We have room for but one language here, and that is the American language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.”
Russell says this about TR on page 430, which RJK after years of reading about Theodore Roosevelt must say Russell is 100% accurate.
“His work must be measured not only by what Roosevelt himself did, but by what he drove others to do, not only by what he did himself, but by what he inspired other to do, not only by what he did himself, but by what he led others to do. Roosevelt’s hammer blow struck the civic conscience of America and he released untold forces of manhood and womanhood, inspired by the same high ideals that he had held and by the same willingness to fight for ideals for which his life had stood; and his work must be appraised not by what he did personally ---- great as it was magnificent and wonderful---but by the indefinable and immeasurable current of life and power that he sent shooting through the veins of America.”