“We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain social outcasts and menaces any more than fifty years ago we could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being. We cannot afford to build a big industrial plant and herd men and women about it without care for their welfare. We cannot afford to permit squalid overcrowding or the kind of living system which makes impossible the decencies and necessities of life. We cannot afford the low wage rates and the merely seasonal industries which mean the sacrifice of both individual and family life and morals to the industrial machinery. We cannot afford to leave American mines, munitions plants, and general resources in the hands of alien workmen, alien to America and even likely to be made hostile to America”

— Theodore Roosevelt

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain social outcasts and menaces any more than fifty years ago we could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being. We cannot afford to build a big industrial plant and herd men and women about it without care for their welfare. We cannot afford to permit squalid overcrowding or the kind of living system which makes impossible the decencies and necessities of life. We cannot afford the low wage rates and the merely seasonal industries which mean the sacrifice of both individual and family life and morals to the industrial machinery. We cannot afford to leave American mines, munitions plants, and general resources in the hands of alien workmen, alien to America and even likely to be made hostile to America by machinations such as have recently been provided in the case of the two foreign embassies in Washington. We cannot afford to run the risk of having in time of war men working on our railways or working in our munition plants who would in the name of duty to their own foreign countries bring destruction to us. Recent events have shown us that incitements to sabotage and strikes are in the view of at least two of the great foreign powers of Europe within their definition of neutral practices. What would be done to us in the name of war if these things are done to us in the name of neutrality?

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain s…" by Theodore Roosevelt?

Theodore Roosevelt 445

American politician, 26th president of the United States 1858–1919

Related quotes

“This country cannot afford now—if it ever could afford—unofficial strikes, wasteful stoppages, long, weary arguments about industrial demarcation, any more than we can afford out-of-date industrial methods, industrial promotion based on influence and connexion rather than technical ability, or management attitudes which give a higher priority to tax avoidance or the earning of quick, uncovenanted capital profits than to modernization and innovation in industrial production methods, or aggressiveness in exports.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton (12 December 1964), quoted in The Times (14 December 1964), p. 14
Prime Minister

“We in Ghana, are committed to the building of an industrialized socialist society. We cannot afford to sit still and be mere passive onlookers. We must ourselves take part in the pursuit of scientific and technological research as a means of providing the basis for our socialist society, Socialism without science is void. …”

Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) Pan Africanist and First Prime Minister and President of Ghana

"Speech delivered by Osagyefo the President at the Laying of the Foundation Stone of Ghana's Atomic Reactor at Kwabenya on 25th November, 1964". As quoted ny E. A. Haizel in Education in Ghana, 1951 – 1966, in Arhin (1992), The Life and Work of Kwame Nkrumah.

“No industry should remain under State ownership unless there is a positive and overwhelming case for it so doing. Inertia is not enough. As a nation, we simply cannot afford it.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1981/nov/10/nationalised-industries in the House of Commons (10 November 1981)

“India missed the Industrial Revolution; it cannot afford to miss the Computer Revolution.”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

In p. 32
Quote, Memorable Quotes from Rajiv Gandhi and on Rajiv Gandhi

“We cannot afford enemies any more … Within a generation or two human society will be in total destructive disarray.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

As quoted in Isaac Asimov (1977) by Joseph D. Olander and Martin Harry Greenberg, p. 165 http://books.google.com/books?id=8HCwAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Babies+are+the+enemies+of+the+human+race%22&dq=%22Babies+are+the+enemies+of+the+human+race%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=i9ldVKqOM_jLsATbvYCgDA&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAw
General sources
Context: We cannot afford enemies any more … Within a generation or two human society will be in total destructive disarray. Heaven knows how bad it will be. The most optimistic view I can take is this: Things will get so bad within a dozen years that it will become obvious … that we must, whether were like each other or not, work together. We have no choice in the matter. … Technologically, we can stop overpopulation, but we have to persuade people to accept the technology. … Babies are the enemies of the human race … Let's consider it this way: by the time the world doubles its population, the amount of energy we will be using will be increased sevenfold which means probably the amount of pollution that we are producing will also be increased sevenfold. If we are now threatened by pollution at the present rate, how will we be threatened with sevenfold pollution by, say, 2010 A. D., distributed among twice the population? We'll be having to grow twice the food out of soil that is being poisoned at seven times the rate.

“Are we ready to believe in the power of our own voices? Are we ready to cast aside our fear and cynicism? Are we ready to work our hearts out to make our dream a reality? Are we ready to overcome? If we are truly ready, then now is the time. This one’s on us. We cannot afford to wait. We cannot afford to doubt. We cannot afford to make excuses. We have this moment of opportunity. And we need to seize it.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2000s, A Challenge to Overcome (November 2007)

“To supply goods is a source of profit, but to supply services is a ' burden upon industry '. It is for this reason that when, as a nation, ' we have never had it so good ' we find that we ' cannot afford ' just what we most need.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 21, Latter-Day Capitalism, p. 239

“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer "universal health care."”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Random Thought
2000s, Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays (2006)
Source: Knowledge And Decisions

“We cannot afford weakly to blind ourselves to the actual conflict which faces us today. The issue is joined, and we must fight or fail.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)

“This must be done quickly - we cannot afford the economic damage being done every single day as a result of Brexit uncertainty.”

Mark Drakeford (1954) First Minister of Wales

Brexit: Force new EU poll on next PM, says Mark Drakeford https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-48771928 BBC News (26 June 2019)
2019

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Theodore Roosevelt 445

Related quotes

Related topics