Theodore Roosevelt on Discrimination
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“It is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.”
In a 1905 message to Congress, Theodore Roosevelt championed open immigration based on individual merit, rejecting discrimination based on religion or nationality.
“It is unwise to depart from the old American tradition and discriminate for or against any man who desires to come here and become a citizen, save on the ground of that man's fitness for citizenship... We can not afford to consider whether he is Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile; whether he is Englishman or Irishman, Frenchman or German, Japanese, Italian, or Scandinavian, or Magyar. What we should desire to find out is the individual quality of the individual man.”