In the early 1980s, Dr. Tanton teamed with former senator S.I. Hayakawa (R-Calif.) to organize U.S. English, an effort to fight what Dr. Tanton called the “erosion of the English language” because of a growing number of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Dr. Tanton projected an image as a soft-spoken small-town physician, but in 1988 a two-year-old internal memorandum was leaked, putting his motivations in a different light. “As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night?” Dr. Tanton concluded. “Or will there be an explosion?”Chavez, Cronkite and Bellow severed ties with U.S. English, and Dr. Tanton eventually resigned as the group’s chairman.

Source: Washington Post July 21, 2019 15:44 UTC