Letters to the Editor
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‘Bush, TR, and 2008’
I read with interest “Bush, TR, and the Road to 2008” [John P. Avlon, Opinion, December 30, 2005]. Amazingly, it doesn’t point to the most obvious comparison with President’s Bush and Theodore Roosevelt.
After the Battle of Manila, Commodore George Dewey picked up from Spain the Philippines for the United States. During most of Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency, the subsequent insurgent war in the new Philippines colony became the hot national issue. Americans were divided over how and why to govern the Philippines, not to mention the cost and loss of life.
The “Goo Goos” hounded Teddy Roosevelt’s administration pretty much during his whole office. These were mainly Northeastern intellectuals from both parties ranging from Mark Twain, William Jennings Bryan, Henry Cabot Lodge, Andrew Carnegie, Rudyard Kipling, and many Ivy League professors.
They formed the first Anti-Imperialist League and were hysterically anti-Teddy Roosevelt. Interestingly, working-class immigrants, the middle classes, and Westerners supported Teddy Roosevelt and his new internationalist, anti-dictator policies.
Ultimately, Teddy Roosevelt won the national argument and in the long run he found his place among the great American presidents. There are so many other parallels with our Iraq debate and Teddy Roosevelt. I am amazed how the media has forgotten U.S. history, because I have not heard anything of the Philippines during the past four years.
For a good reading on this age, see the “First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power” by Warren Zimmerman.
BENJAMIN OSTROM
Madison, N.J.
‘N.Y. Senators & Immigration.’
As an immigrant who used to prepare immigration applications, helping people immigrate to the United States, I wish to respond to your article, “N.Y. Senators Are Pushed on Immigration” [Daniela Gerson, Page 1, December 22, 2005].
Americans must realize that the United States is declining very rapidly. The Chinese government now holds $190 billion of our national debt. America still has over 30 million Americans living in poverty and tens of millions of unemployed and underemployed low-skilled legal residents, including Katrina victims.
In addition, America is now the greatest debtor nation on earth, with the highest budget and trade deficits in human history. And we don’t have an unlimited supply of energy for unlimited newcomers.
Also, according to test scores, American children are falling behind compared to students in many countries in Asia and Europe. Many schools across the U.S. are overwhelmed by exploding immigration-related enrollments.
Political leaders who are truly protective of natives and legal immigrants already here should advocate reducing legal immigration to a level that would not exacerbate energy, education, budgetary and unemployment problems, before bringing in more legal immigrants or spending tens of billions of dollars a year on social services for illegal immigrant families.
YEH LING-LING
Executive Director Diversity Alliance For a Sustainable America
www.diversityalliance.org
Oakland, Calif.
‘Worst Writer in World’
Criticism doesn’t come any cheaper or easier than the lame string of one-liners Otto Penzler recently devoted to Harry Stephen Keeler in these pages [“The Worst Writer in the World,” Arts & Letters, December 21, 2005].
Keeler is a singular creature in the literary landscape, the inventor of his own unique genre, which he called “webwork.”
He isn’t a mystery writer at all – Jorge Luis Borges might have invented him. His antecedents include O. Henry, and the great French oddity Raymond Roussel, though I take it from his last sentence that Mr. Penzler doesn’t think much of the French either. I think adventurous readers might get a lot of enjoyment of Keeler’s fantastic narrative contraptions.
B. KITE
Brooklyn, N.Y.
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