The Bully Pulpit and the Melting Pot: American Presidents and the Immigrant, 1897-1933Mercer University Press, 2004 - 261 pages Between 1897 and 1933 the presidents of the United States joined progressive reformers in redefining the concept of the United States as a melting pot. Their use of this metaphor to describe assimilation never meant that immigrants had to completely abandon their ethnic cultures. Instead, they argued that the melting pot blended the best of the immigrants traits and traditions to create a new American race united by patriotism and committed to liberal political and economic ideals. While nativists regarded new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe as incapable of assimilation, the presidents celebrated immigrant contributions to America and emphasized the need to improve immigrants' lives through education, resettlement away from urban ghettoes, and economic uplift. The president's speeches, letters, and administrative records reveal consistent support for the melting pot model as an alternative to nativist racism. While McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson supported the exclusion of racial aliens and those with mental or physical illness, they repeatedly praised the new immigrants for embracing American ideals while maintaining their ethnic cultures. They argued that everyone should be judged by their moral character rather than their ancestry. World War I raised fears of disloyal aliens that Roosevelt and Wilson heightened by denouncing hyphenated Americans. Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover continued to use melting pot rhetoric, however, rather than endorsing coercive assimilation. The melting pot legacy lives on, and still offers a middle ground between the demands for national unity and multiculturalism. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 61
Page ix
... foreign - born do not constitute as great a percentage of the population now as they did then . According to the 2000 census , there were over thirty - one million foreign - born residents , representing eleven percent of the population ...
... foreign - born do not constitute as great a percentage of the population now as they did then . According to the 2000 census , there were over thirty - one million foreign - born residents , representing eleven percent of the population ...
Page x
... foreign - born , assuming that the process was both inevitable and desirable . Immigrants were welcomed into American society as long as they embraced democratic political ideals and capitalist economic principles , and conducted their ...
... foreign - born , assuming that the process was both inevitable and desirable . Immigrants were welcomed into American society as long as they embraced democratic political ideals and capitalist economic principles , and conducted their ...
Page xii
... foreign - born had to abandon their old cultures completely and conform to an " Anglo - Saxon " model . Instead , they celebrated the contributions that European immigrants made to American culture as part of the melting process . They ...
... foreign - born had to abandon their old cultures completely and conform to an " Anglo - Saxon " model . Instead , they celebrated the contributions that European immigrants made to American culture as part of the melting process . They ...
Page xiii
... foreign - born to join wholeheartedly in upholding American political and economic ideals , contributing their gifts to strengthen the United States . The result was a civic nationalism that embodied the motto , " E pluribus , unum ...
... foreign - born to join wholeheartedly in upholding American political and economic ideals , contributing their gifts to strengthen the United States . The result was a civic nationalism that embodied the motto , " E pluribus , unum ...
Page 5
... foreign - born wives and children of us citizens . 7 Many states even allowed aliens who had taken out their " first papers " to vote in elections . The confidence in assimilation expressed in the naturalization laws was matched by ...
... foreign - born wives and children of us citizens . 7 Many states even allowed aliens who had taken out their " first papers " to vote in elections . The confidence in assimilation expressed in the naturalization laws was matched by ...
Contents
1 | |
Theodore Roosevelt and Immigration of the Right Kind | 27 |
William Howard Taft and the Dillingham Commission | 61 |
Woodrow Wilson and Hyphenated Americans | 94 |
Chapter 5 The Melting Pot at Its Boiling Point | 121 |
Warren G Harding and Americanization Revised | 155 |
Common terms and phrases
Address administration aliens American ideals American Immigration Policy April argued Asian assimilation asylum become a public believed bill Bureau Calvin Coolidge campaign Catholic census Chinese citizens citizenship Commissioner Committee Congress Congressional culture Davis December declared Democratic Despite Dillingham Dillingham Commission Ellis Island ethnic groups eugenicists Eugenics Europe European immigrants excluded foreign foreign-born German German-American Harding Papers Herbert Hoover Hoover Papers Hutchinson hyphenated hyphenated Americans ibid Immigration Commission immigration laws Immigration Restriction League insisted Irish issue Italian James January Japanese John language Legislative History Letters of Theodore literacy test Lodge melting pot melting pot concept national origins quotas native native-born nativists patriotic political president Presidential public charge race racial reel Republican restrictionists Secretary Selective Immigration Senate Society Southern and Eastern speech Taft Papers Theodore Roosevelt treaty United University Press veto vols vote voters Warren G William Howard Taft William McKinley Woodrow Wilson wrote York Zeidel
Popular passages
Page 2 - He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds.
Page vii - America is God's crucible, the great Melting Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty hatreds and rivalries.
Page 2 - ... American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater.
Page 5 - ... shall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe?
Page vii - Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won't be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of God you've come to — these are the fires of God.