It's Time To Review a 1905 Letter....

I hate using the orange circus peanut's name, but I will, with heavy heart, use it here.  Under the guidance of the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald John Trump, the United States Border Patrol and Immigration Service is ripping families apart.  Infants, young children, and teenagers are being forcibly separated from their parents and set apart, with minimal comforts and little hands-on care and training.  Trump says it's because of the Democrats.  The only reason this is happening is due to Trump's own views and his executive directives - Congress has had absolutely nothing to do with this travesty.  It has come straight from Donald Trump and his fawning partner, Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions, the Attorney General at the Department of Justice.
   So - let's look with new eyes and understanding at a letter written by a man who left his country, then returned 20 years later, only to be told he could not stay in the country of his choice - his "homeland."   The letter, translated from the original German by Austen Hinckley, reads:
 
   "Most Serene, Most Powerful Prince Regent!  Most Gracious Regent and Lord!

 I was born in Kallstadt on March 14, 1869.  My parents were honest, plain, pious vineyard workers.  They strictly held me to everything good - to diligence and piety, to regular attendance in school and church, to absolute obedience toward the high authority.
   After my confirmation, in 1882, I apprenticed to become a barber.  I emigrated in 1885, in my sixteenth year.  In America I carried on my business with diligence, discretion, and prudence.  God's blessing was with me, and I became rich.  I obtained American citizenship in 1892.  In 1902 I met my current wife.  Sadly, she could not tolerate the climate in New York, and I went with my dear family back to Kallstadt.
  The town was glad to have received a capable and productive citizen.  My old mother was happy to see her son, her dear daughter-in-law, and her granddaughter around her; she knows now that I will take care of her in her old age.
  But we were confronted all at once, as if by a lightning strike from fair skies, with the news that the High Royal State Ministry had decided that we must leave our residence in the Kingdom of Bavaria.  We were paralyzed with fright; our happy home life was tarnished.  My wife has been overcome by anxiety, and my lovely child has become sick.
  Why should we be deported?  This is very, very hard for a family.  What will our fellow citizens think if honest subjects are faced with such a decree - not to mention the great material losses it would incur.  I would like to become a Bavarian citizen again.
  In this urgent situation I have no other recourse than to turn to our adored, noble, wise, and just sovereign lord, our exalted ruler His Royal Highness, highest of all, who has already dried so many tears, who has ruled so beneficially and justly and wisely and softly and is warmly and deeply loved, with the most humble request that the highest of all will himself in mercy deign to allow the applicant to stay in the most gracious Kingdom of Bavaria.

  Your most humble and obedient,

Friedrich Trump"

This is a letter written in 1905 by Friedrich Trump, the grandfather of President Donald Trump, to the Prince Regent of Bavaria, Luitpold.  Friedrich Trump had been ordered to leave Bavaria, again, for two reasons: first, he failed to register his initial emigration to the United States when he left in 1885; and second, because he did not complete his mandatory military service to Bavaria before leaving.  Prince Luitpold rejected Friedrich Trump's request for repatriation, and the Trump family returned to New York City.  When Friedrich arrived in America in 1885, his last name was spelled Drumpf; he changed it to Trump in 1887, and achieved American citizenship with that name.
  It is also very interesting to note that Friedrich was accepted in America because his older sister was already in New York City - he listed her as his sponsor; it was, and is, an example of "chain immigration" of families that President Trump deplores so much.  His mother, Mary Anne McLeod, was also a "chain immigrant," joining her sister.  And his current wife's parents also used "chain immigration" to become American citizens.  Appaently, it's fine for Trump's family to use "chain immigration," but now, he doesn't want anyone else to be allowed to do so.

Just think how different history may have been, if Prince Luitpold had  repatriated the Trump family back in 1905...  The history of the United States may have had a completely different twist.  And current immigrants and asylum seekers would not be having their children, their most cherished possessions, torn from them.  (And Donald's father would not have been arrested in New York City in 1927, for causing and fighting in a riot at a Ku Klux Klan march...)

You know, I believe that from now on, when I have to refer to the 45th President by name, I shall use the correct pronunciation of  his Bavarian Palatinate surname.  I shall talk about President (phonetically) Droompf......