Immigration Quote Wrongly Attributed to Sir Edmund Barton

Outline:
Email with an old photograph of a leader addressing a crowd claims that a speech on the assimilation of immigrants included in the message was made by Australia’s first Prime Minister Sir Edmund Barton in 1907.

Brief Analysis:
The quoted words were not spoken by Sir Edmund Barton nor were they spoken in 1907. The original version of the quote comes from a letter written by US president Theodore Roosevelt in 1919. The photograph also depicts Theodore Roosevelt. Someone has substituted “Australian” in place of the original “American” and falsely attributed the quote and photograph to early Australian Prime Minister Edmund Barton.

Detailed Analysis:
This emailed message, which contains a quote discussing the need for immigrants to assimilate fully to the Australian way of life, claims that the words were spoken by Australia’s first Prime Minister Edmund Barton back in the year 1907. An old photograph captioned with the words “Edmund Barton 1907” is also included in the message. The quote suggests that immigrants to Australia should be treated with equality and without discrimination, but only if they are willing to become “in every facet an Australian, and nothing but an Australian”. Many 21st Century Australians are likely to agree with this view of immigration and therefore view the quote is still relevant. So much so that they might eagerly comply with the email’s request to keep the quote moving “until every Australian with a computer receives it”.

However, even if you happen to agree with the sentiment expressed in the quote, before you forward it on, you should be aware of it real origins. The words were not spoken by Edmund Barton. Instead they were penned by US President Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to the American Defense Society. Moreover, Roosevelt wrote the passage in 1919, shortly before his death, not in 1907 as claimed in the message. The original American version of the quote is available in an article titled “TO ‘POSSESS THE NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF AN AMERICAN’ by Dr John Fonte, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute:

‘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…..We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one soul (sic) loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”’

A more complete version of the quote was included in an article published in the July 1921 issue of “The Flaming Sword”. The article discussed a ceremony to celebrate the presentation of a portrait of Roosevelt that included the immigration quote:

The Art Hall was beautifully decorated with the American colors, and with a color scheme of red, white, and blue flow^ers and shrubbery such as are only grown in tropical and semitropical countries, and with which Estero is bountifully blessed. Roosevelt’s picture, which rested on an easel draped with the American colors, was encased in a beautiful frame made of Florida eucalyptus, magnolia, and black walnut wood. Printed on the picture is Roosevelt’s last public message, read in the Hippodrome in New York City the night before he died:

“Keep up the Fight for Americanism” “I cannot be with you, and so all I can do is to wish you Godspeed. There must be no sagging back in the fight for Americanism merely because the war is over. There are plenty of persons who have already made the assertion that they believe the American people have a short memory, and they intend to revive all the foreign associations which most directly interfere with the complete Americanization of our people.
“Our principle in this matter should be absolutely simple. 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. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest’ of America, then he isn’t doing his part as an American.
“There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but is 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.
“We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

Exactly where and when the photograph was taken is not known to me at this time. However, the speaker in the photograph is quite clearly Roosevelt rather than Barton.

A US version of the message, which correctly attributes the quote to Roosevelt, has already been circulating for several years. Thus it seems that some unknown armchair activist has decided to willfully alter history to further his or her own agenda by simply substituting “Edmund Barton” for “Theodore Roosevelt” and “Australian” for “American”.

And for the record, Edmund Barton was no longer Prime Minister in 1907 having left parliament in September 1903 to take up a position as one of the founding justices of the High Court of Australia. Alfred Deakin was Australia’s Prime Minister in 1907.

Barton’s policy on immigration did mirror Roosevelt’s ideas in some ways. In 1901, Barton introduced the Immigration Restriction Bill to Federal Parliament, a bill that laid the foundation for the regrettable and racist White Australia Policy. During the introduction of the bill he is quoted as saying:

We are guarding the last part of the world in which the higher races can live and increase freely for the higher civilisation.”

The Immigration Restriction Bill excluded “potential migrants who were ‘undesirable’ by virtue of their nationality or race” by the implementation of an English language dictation test.

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