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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 883
AUTHOR: Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
QUOTATION: Every man has a right to one country. He has a right to love and serve that country and to feel that it is absolutely his country and that he has in it every right possessed by anyone else. It is our duty to require the man of German blood who is an American citizen to give up all allegiance to Germany wholeheartedly and without on his part any mental reservation whatever. If he does this it becomes no less our duty to give him the full rights of an American, including our loyal respect and friendship without on our part any mental reservation whatever. The duties are reciprocal, and from the standpoint of American patriotism one is as important as the other.
ATTRIBUTION: THEODORE ROOSEVELT, “Every Man Has a Right to One Country,” The Kansas City (Missouri) Star, July 15, 1918, p. 2.
SUBJECTS: Immigrants