What were Theodore Roosevelt's views on Americanization?

Answer 1

Theodore Roosevelt was a 'Champion of the American Spirit' which is also the name of one of his biographies. He led the country with energetic pride in all aspects and considered the small businessman on the same level as the millionaire tycoon.

Answer 2

Teddy Roosevelt seems to have espoused the concept of "assimilation", aka "the melting pot."

In quotes both before and after he was President, Teddy expressed a concern over immigrants who retained some sort of "fifty-fifty allegiance" between their new country (the US) and their home country.

In 1894, he wrote of a hypothetical immigrant: "If he tries to retain his old language, in a few generations it becomes a barbarous jargon; if he tries to retain his old customs and ways of life, in a few generations he becomes an uncouth boor."

In 1919, in a widely circulated comment written just days before he died, he wrote in part:

"...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 very fact 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."