6/214/2006

Ordering cheesesteaks with Teddy Roosevelt
By Don Klein

When South Philadelphia’s best known cheesesteak emporium put a sign in the window last December declaring “This is America: When ordering ‘speak English,’” it upset a lot of neighborhood people.  In this era of indulging American businesses and government, which offer Spanish language alternatives to accommodate legal and illegal aliens who cannot speak English, the adverse reaction was expected.

 Despite the current controversy over the sign there was a time when getting immigrants to speak English was very much in style. No one less than Theodore Roosevelt, the outspoken and xenophobic president at the beginning of the 20th century, said as much in his inimitable style.

 In 1919, the then former president said three days before he died, “In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for 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. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...”

 Roosevelt emphasized, ”We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

 No one knows whether Joseph Vento, the owner of Geno’s in Philadelphia where the sign went into the window, ever knew of the famous Teddy Roosevelt statement, but it seems many others are unaware of it as well. The local Hispanic organization said it would send people to Geno’s to order in Spanish to challenge how serious Geno’s is about speaking English.

 They may discover that Mr. Vento is a businessman who cherishes patronage and who will not turn away any well-behaved customer who shows up at his door. Often clerks patiently coach non-English speaking customers until they are able to say, “cheesesteak.”  That’s all the English they have to speak when returning at a later date to order again.

 Competitors are taking advantage of the ruckus and are seizing the opportunity to pick up business. One rival, Tony Luke’s, invited all customers “whether or not they speak a ‘wit’ of English.”  A coalition of immigrant groups fought back, saying, “For some people I think we are just going to say, ‘le gusta Pat’s,’” it was reported in Baltimore’s The Sun.

 “Americanization” was a favorite theme of Roosevelt’s during his later years, when he railed repeatedly against “hyphenated Americans” and the prospect of a nation “brought to ruins” by a “tangle of squabbling nationalities.”

 He advocated during one of the most active periods of immigration in the country the compulsory learning of English by every naturalized citizen. “Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or to leave the country,” he said in a statement to the Kansas City Star in 1918. “English should be the only language taught or used in the public schools.”

 He also insisted, on more than one occasion, that America has no room for what he called “fifty-fifty allegiance.” In a speech made in 1917 he said, “It is our boast that we admit the immigrant to full fellowship and equality with the native-born. In return we demand that he shall share our undivided allegiance to the one flag which floats over all of us.”

 Back in Philadelphia, when asked if the publicity over the speak English policy will nudge him to taking down the sign, Mr. Vento insisted he will not remove it. Could he have been thinking, “If it’s good enough for Teddy Roosevelt it’s good enough for me.”

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