Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul.

From Theodore Roosevelt Addresses the Knights of Columbus, October 12, 1915.

Roosevelt was the archetype reforming progressive president, consequential and effective in some areas, disastrously misguided in others. Like Churchill, there is enough to the man and his record to praise to high heaven and to condemn with loathing: but what a man.

From his speech. Emphasis added.

What is true of creed is no less true of nationality. There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

It is easy to recoil from the robust argument. We are unaccustomed to hearing such straightforward speech. We hate the idea of loyalty oaths. And of course, we can't ignore the temporal context of his speech with a looming possible American commitment in World War I when our second largest ethnic group were (apologies TR) German-Americans.

It is easy to see where people might wish to take offense to this speech. Why cannot a person have multiple affections? We should never ask people to reject their heritage. etc. etc.

But once you readjust your lens a little, Roosevelt is actually making a straight-forward argument. Be an American or don't be an American, your choice. And all that is required is that as an American your first priority is America and your fellow Americans. Not that you cannot celebrate your heritage. Not that you have to reject it. Just that it has to be a priority below your obligations as an American to your fellow Americans.

That first sentence in the second paragraph is such a prophetic insight a hundred years ago about the dangers we face today where we have people trying to force us to view everyone in terms of race and gender and ethnicity and religion and orientation. Well intended they might be but bigots none-the-less.

Martin Luther King articulated his dream for America.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

That speech presaged a decade's worth of legislation which indeed brought that dream very close to a reality. A reality not only in law but in the behaviors and expectations of virtually all Americans. We do seek to judge one another by the contents of our characters, by our actions and deeds, and not by race or religion or gender. We aspire to Reverend King's goal and we come surprisingly close to it.

But somehow, three decades after that landmark speech, civil rights became displaced in some cramped corners by social justice and the perverse idea that we should indeed judge one another based on race and religion and gender, etc.

And Theodore Roosevelt knew long before that such an obsession would be the road to ruin. "The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else." Forget the pandering of the divisives and hyphenating as black or white or asian or hetero cisgender or what not. Identify as an American and let that be sufficient.

"Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul." And it is a big spirit, an inclusive soul, and generous.