Teddy Roosevelt, interestingly, was a founding member of the American Irish Historical Society. This fact in no way contradicts (and, given his fancy Knickerbocker surname, could be said to reinforce) his ideas about the role of assimilation in American society. TR does seem to have believed that the country would give rise to a new, less tribally involved breed through the alchemy of absorption. At the same time, he was perfectly willing to recognize the historically significant flows of immigration in both the country’s background and his own. A good model for considering this stuff, perhaps.