President Woodrow Wilson

“To American Citizens of Foreign Birth” – 1915

"My urgent advice to you would be, not only to always think first of America, but always, also, to think first of humanity. You do not love humanity if you seek to divide humanity into jealous camps. Humanity can be welded together only by love, by sympathy, by justice, not by jealousy and hatred. I am sorry for the man who seeks to make personal capital out of the passions of his fellow men. He has lost the touch and ideal of America. For America was created to unite mankind … if some of us have forgotten what America believed in, you, at any rate, imported in your hearts a renewal of the belief. That is the reason that I, for one, make you welcome. If I have in any degree forgotten what America was intended for, I will thank God if you will remind me. I was born in America. You dreamed dreams of what America was to be, and I hope you brought the dreams with you. No man who does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any enterprise. Just because you brought dreams with you, America is more likely to realize dreams such as you brought. You are enriching us if you come expecting us to better than we are … "