Teddy Roosevelt's Speech Analysis

📌Category: Government, President of the United States, Speech
📌Words: 1004
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 22 January 2022

What do we know about Teddy Roosevelt at this point in time? In 1894 when this speech was given, he was a state assemblyman of New York who supported Progressivism, a movement that supported a more active government that controlled immigration, conflicts between laborers and owners, protected consumers, and promoted economic growth. This speech by Roosevelt was based around immigration, the moving of people from one country to another and nationalism, the support of one’s country.

Theodore Roosevelt needed a new platform of people to support Progressivism by using his speech he influenced the increasing number of immigrants coming to New York to support his policies and promoted long term changes of government control. “It is not only necessary to Americanize the immigrants of foreign birth who settle among us, but it is even more necessary for those among us who are by birth and descent already Americans not to throw away our birthright, ...” This quote brings up a good point about supporting nationalism even if you are not originally from one area. In this instance, Roosevelt explained that if a person is an immigrant they can follow American values, individual freedoms, the “American Dream”, and support policies that actively help them. In this case, Roosevelt tried to convince people that Progressivism is a positive movement that can be used to support their needs and values. He also stated, “those among us who are by birth and descent already Americans not to throw away our birthright, ...” meaning natural citizens can also agree with these ideas and it is American to do so, being an American is what is important, not where you identify from. His main audience is still that of the large immigrant population and as seen in several instances in his speech he actively talked about their role as Americans. Not to face criticism, Roosevelt did agree that regulation of immigration is important if the values of those immigrants do not agree with American values. This is an important point to make, as those who immigrated must support an American system of individual freedoms. If they did not agree with these ideals then they would be of no help to progress the country and are not truly Americans. The second quote being, “It is a base outrage to oppose a man because of his religion or birthplace, and all good citizens will hold any such effort in abhorrence… an American has the right to stand on exactly the same footing as any native-born citizen in the land, and is just as much entitled to the friendship and support, social and political, of his neighbors.”

Each person is owed the same liberties and their choice of religion should not be questioned. If that religion infringes on another person’s rights then it is unconstitutional. At the start of the Industrial Revolution the country had immigrants coming in from Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland and those who were farmers pouring into cities where there were more jobs and opportunities. This influx meant many classes and types of people were living in the same area for the first time. As we know this caused a separation of people based on similar beliefs such as religion and those of the same race or class. Roosevelt wanted to show a commonality between groups as Americans,“an American has the right to stand on exactly the same footing as any native-born citizen.” Immigrants and native-born citizens were not as different as they seemed to be; individual freedom was available to all Americans. Now, how did this support Progressivism? While Victorians made up a majority of Progressives they needed another, larger backing of people that made up a majority of the population. Immigrants were that target audience that believed in more control over business owners as they were mostly working-class with little to no individual land or ownership. Roosevelt therefore catered to immigrants in this speech and showed his support for immigration as they benefited the country’s economic prosperity. Remember Progressives wanted a more progressive country that could compete with other industrial countries for power. The final quote,” It is urgently necessary to check and regulate our immigration, by much more drastic laws than now exist; and this should be done both to keep out laborers who tend to depress the labor market, and to keep out races which do not assimilate readily with our own...” The previous two quotes were in agreement of immigration while this quote takes a more hesitant view. Delving deeper into why Roosevelt would have included this was to show he understood working-class citizens that opposed immigration as they believed it affected their jobs opportunities. He explained that he wanted to keep out laborers that depress the market meaning those who would negatively affect the positive progress of the country.

While clearly this was not a larger number of people being that only 2% of all immigrants were turned away at Ellis Island, the building where all immigrants passed through to enter the United States. This was more to save face and to some extent show that not all immigrants were good for the US. This could be because they did not assimilate with other races as stated or in some instances did not agree with American values. There could be some resistance to democracy, but for many immigrants America was a beacon of hope where they had opportunities to move up the economic ladder. They could use Social Engineering, the idea that modern people could “shape” their destiny to put themselves and their families into a better economic state. As a whole, Roosevelt’s message was pro immigrants as they positively affected the country, and we as a society would benefit from their inclusion. During the course of this speech we can see a few topics brought up including nationalism, immigration, being American, and inclusion. All these topics relate to the idea that Progressivism was positive for the country and those native and foreign can both benefit from it.

As Roosevelt became a more prominent leader he used Progressivism to improve the infrastructure of the country, protected Americans by creating the Food and Drug Administration, who tested and verified the quality of food and drugs that the country consumes. As well as, created social programs, created more national parks and laws that protected workers rights and stopped the monopolizing of business. These actions made Roosevelt one of the beloved presidents and set the country up for a prospering economy where the working-class benefited. We as a country have kept many of his.

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