Ranking presidents is a difficult task. Our country venerates some and demonizes others. With the passing of time, the legacies of some improve as they are reexamined through modern eyes. Conversely, the reputations of others are tarnished as we take a closer look at the opinions they held and policies they pursued which are not in line with modern values. Ranking presidents is hard because they are human beings. Capable of doing good in the world, but also filled with hypocrisies, inconsistencies, and shortcomings all shaped by the time in which they lived. And yet, the student of history must look at the totality of a president's time in office. They must take a full measure of the good and the bad, in order to fairly assess their leadership. Woodrow Wilson presents an interesting challenge. A man whose accomplishments rank among the most noteworthy in American history, but whose personal prejudices will forever mar his presidency. I hope this will be a fair and honest assessment. Woodrow Wilson was an academic. He was born in Virginia in 1856, the son of Joseph Ruggles Wilson, a Presbyterian pastor and professor of theology. Wilson’s family were slaveholders and strong supporters of the Confederacy. As a young boy, he briefly encountered General Robert E. Lee. His southern upbringing would make a lasting impact on him. Not only did it help develop his admiration for the Confederate General, but it also shaped his problematic views regarding race. However, when given the chance, Wilson got out of the South. In 1874, he enrolled at Princeton University to study political science. After graduating he briefly practiced law before enrolling at John Hopkins University to pursue a doctorate, which he earned in 1886. To date, he is the only American President to have a PhD. He began a career as a professor because he enjoyed the prospect of a quiet life of writing and study with the promise of a steady paycheck. And write he did. Throughout his career, Dr. Wilson authored numerous papers critiquing various forms of western democracies, contributed regularly to some of the most respected political science journals of the day, wrote a biography of George Washington, and authored a prominent American history textbook. More about that later. In 1902, Wilson was appointed President of Princeton University. In this role, Wilson was given the opportunity to allow his untapped leadership skills flourish. He gained a reputation as not only an effective and capable administrator, but also a reformer who challenged the status quo. He was an out-of-the-box thinker who had no trouble fundraising for the university. This caught the eye of the New Jersey Democratic Party. Republicans dominated New Jersey politics and the Democrats were willing to take a gamble on an unconventional candidate that offered voters something new. Wilson proved to be the man for the job. Throughout the 1910 campaign, Dr. Wilson proved that his years of studying politics had paid dividends. He burst on the scene as a skilled orator, an independent voice, and a full throated progressive. He railed against the corporate trusts that, for far too long, had maintained a stranglehold on both political parties. He relied upon the support of the powerful Democratic Party bosses, but promised the voters that he would be his own man; independent of the establishment. During a time of progressive change throughout the United States, when prominent leaders of both parties were speaking out on behalf of workers, conservation, and consumer protection, Woodrow Wilson quickly became a leading voice within the movement. Wilson was elected by a sizable margin, bringing an end to an era of Republican dominance in the Garden State. Once in office, he worked with the state legislature to win passage of bills that broke up monopolies, curbed corporate power, and improved working conditions. His success at the state level gained him national notoriety catching the eye of the National Democratic Party. By 1912, Democrats were desperate for a victory. It had been 20 years since a Democrat had been elected President. That man, Grover Cleveland, was the only Democrat that had been elected President in the 47 years since the end of the Civil War. The electoral map simply did not work in favor of the Democrats. If the Democrats hoped to win in 1912, they would need to rally behind a candidate that could energize their traditional base, win over progressive Republicans that were disappointed by President WIlliam Howard Taft, and hope for a miracle. The Democrats found their fresh candidate in Woodrow Wilson. They found their miracle in former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt, who left the presidency in 1909, had become frustrated in retirement. He was frustrated with the lack of excitement in his life. He was frustrated with the direction of the country. Most of all, he was frustrated with his former best friend, President WIlliam Howard Taft who he had hand picked as his successor. Many of the progressive policies that Roosevelt had instituted while president were being rolled back under Taft. President Taft had removed several Roosevelt appointees from prominent positions within the administration. Taft, who had a strict legal mind, also broke up numerous monopolies that were in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Many of these monopolies had been deemed “good trusts” by Roosevelt and he had allowed them to remain in operation during his administration. Teddy took this as a personal offense and vowed to replace Taft as the Republican nominee in 1912. In doing so, he hoped to reignite the progressive wing of the Republican Party. A party that was slowly drifting toward more conservative positions. Twelve states held Republican primaries for the first time in history. Roosevelt won 9 of the 12 contests. However, the vast majority of states held no such primary to send delegates to the convention, opting instead to allow the state party to choose delegates without the input of voters. At the 1912 Republican National Convention, which was dominated by establishment Republican delegates, the conservatives won. Taft was renominated. Roosevelt’s loyalists were livid. They left the convention and established a new political party which they named the Progressive Party and quickly nominated Theodore Roosevelt as their standard bearer. The Republican Party was hopelessly divided. Half stood with the conservative leaning incumbent, President William Howard Taft. The other half rallied around former President Theodore Roosevelt and his far-reaching progressive agenda known as the “New Nationalism”. The divide in the GOP, opened the door for WIlson. In November 1912, despite winning less than 42% of the popular vote, Governor Wilson won a plurality in enough states to win the Electoral College decisively, thus becoming the first Democrat in two decades to reach the nation’s highest office. Not only did Roosevelt’s actions allow for the Democrat Wilson to win election, the progressive voices he took with him from the Republican party would never return to the GOP. Upon entering office in the Spring of 1913, President Wilson set to work winning passage of a number of bills that would make up his “New Freedom” agenda. In order to do this, Wilson believed that the government must act to tear down the “triple wall of privilege” - the tariff, the banks, and the trusts. Wilson believed that these three obstacles were used by the wealthy industrialists to cripple competition, oppress small farmers, weaken small business and labor, all while consolidating their economic and political dominance over America. Within months, Wilson won passage of the Underwood-Simmons Act which reduced the federal tariff that was hurting small farmers at the expense of powerful industrialists. Tariffs provided a large portion of revenue that funded the federal government. Reducing the tariff was sure to cause a hole in the federal budget. Fortunately for Wilson, weeks before taking office the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allowed Congress to institute an income tax. As a result, Wilson was able to work with Congress to shift the tax burden off of the working class (the tariff) and toward the wealthy captains of industry via the income tax. Next, Wilson set out to reform the banking system. The American monetary and banking system had been a mess since Andrew Jackson killed the Bank of the United States in the 1830s. Credit was inaccessible to many small farmers and businesses. This coupled with the instability of the American dollar led to numerous economic panics over the past 70 years. Unlike many Western nations at the time, America lacked a national bank. It lacked a single entity to issue currency, safeguard government deposits, set interest rates, and otherwise bring stability to the financial markets. Seeking the middle ground between public and private control of the nation’s financial system, Wilson oversaw the creation of the Federal Reserve System. The new national banking system was largely independent of the federal government. Although the board of governors are appointed by the President of the United States, they serve 14 year terms guaranteeing that no individual administration or congressional majority can exert undue pressure over their decision making. The twelve regional banks oversee the creation of privately owned banks, which in turn hold stock in the federal reserve banks and help to elect the board of directors for those regional banks. Although the nation has still experienced recessions and depressions in the years since it’s creation, the Federal Reserve has done a good job of maintaining the stability of the American dollar and helping to alleviate the worst effects of any economic downturn.
By 1914, President Wilson had proven himself to be one of the most effective administrators in American history. His record of legislative achievement rivals any president before or since his time in office. In one term, he had firmly cemented himself as one of the true champions of the Progressive Era. However, every person has their flaws, inconsistencies, and hypocrites. Woodrow Wilson is no different. While he may very well have been a progressive president, there was one area in which Wilson was not only not progressive, he was in fact rolling back the clock on progress. That area was race. Woodrow Wilson, was a racist. The federal government, having been led by Northern Republican presidents since the days of Reconstruction, was one of the more integrated parts of American society in the early 1900s. Woodrow Wilson, however, believed in segregation and his administration oversaw the implementation of a plan to expand segregation within the civil service. The President’s feeling was that separate work facilities would prevent “friction” between the races. Furthermore, black civil servants were routinely fired and replaced with whites. Such racism shouldn’t be surprising upon further examination. Wilson was a southerner by birth. He admired the South and identified closely with the “Lost Cause” mythology that attempted to rewrite history and portray the Confederates, not as treasonist defenders of slavery, but rather as defenders of states’ rights and their native soil. This was the late-nineteenth, early-twentieth century movement that led to hundreds of confederate statues and monuments being erected throughout the country. As for rewriting history, Wilson, himself the author of an American history textbook, painted a flattering picture of Confederacy, downplayed the horrific actions of the KKK, and portrayed black Americans as an inferior race. Some of his quotes were even used in the infamous film “Birth of Nation” which glorified the KKK as defenders of the South. A film that was screened at the White House. For all Wilson did to create a more fair and equitable society for white Americans, he did the opposite for black Americans. While his views certainly were backward compared to previous progressive presidents such as Taft and Roosevelt, the sad truth is that (according to Wilson biographer John Milton Cooper) Wilson’s views on race probably were far more in line with the average northern white American than we like to admit. In the summer of 1914, the guns of war rang out across Europe. The Great War, as it was known at the time, consumed the western world. American newspapers reported on the carnage daily and American readers were horrified by the reports of trench warfare, deadly new weapons like machine guns and poison gas, and the suffering of millions. While many Americans, a great many of whom were recent immigrants from Europe, sympathized with those suffering across the Atlantic, one thing was abundantly clear: Americans wanted nothing to do with Europe’s war. Wilson was dedicated to neutrality. He had no desire to be drawn into the conflict and would spend the better part of three years taking steps to ensure that American boys were not sent to die on European battlefields. It was this sentiment that propelled Wilson to reelection in 1916 running on the slogan “He Kept Us Out of War”. Spoiler Alert: Less than one month after his second inauguration, he asked Congress for a declaration of war. So why did America go to war against the Central Powers in 1917. The answer is a complicated one. From the beginning of the war a American public opinion sympathized with the British and to a lesser extent their allies France and Russia. Americans shared a common form of government, language, culture, religion, and history with Great Britain. It also is worth noting that the United States had far closer economic ties to Britain and France than it did Germany and American banks had made large loans to the British. This is not to say that there weren’t strong feelings on the other side as well. Millions of Americans were of German descent and still had family living in the country at the time of the war. Many German Americans urged caution and neutrality. Meanwhile, Irish Americans were dismayed at the idea that America might in any way lend a hand to Great Britain. However, British propaganda was an effective tool in the United States, often portraying the Germans as butchers. Real world events seemed to support this narrative as well. In 1915, a German U-boat sank the British passenger ship RMS Lusitania killing more than 1,000 passengers including more than 100 Americans. Anti-German sentiment began to rise. In 1917 as the situation in Europe deteriorated, Germany began a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking any and all vessels headed for Britain, passenger and military ships alike. Soon thereafter, the discovery of the Zimmerman telegram further changed public opinion. A coded message from German foreign minister Arthur Zimmerman to the German ambassador in Mexico was intercepted by the British. The Germans, worried that unrestricted submarine warfare might bring America into the war, planned to encourage Mexico to attack the United States in order to prevent the Americans from joining the side of the Allies. In exchange the Germans promised to help the Mexicans recover the territory they had lost to the United States following the Mexican American War in 1848. Americans were angered by the communica and were even more outraged when German U-boats sunk several American merchant ships. Meanwhile, Britain and France braced for a more concentrated attack from the Central Powers. Their unlikely ally Russia was on the verge of defeat and soon would be out of the war. Germany could then focus all of its attention on the western front. On April 2, 1917, Wilson went to Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Germany. In his most famous speech, the idealistic Wilson presented the United States as a peace loving nation that had no choice but to become the defender of democracy throughout the world. “The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make.” Congress obliged and declared war on the German Empire four days later. Despite the soaring rhetoric, support for the war was far from universal. Six Senators and 50 members of the House of Representatives voted against the declaration including Congresswoman Janette Rankin of Montana. Among other reasons, Rankin saw the hypocrisy in supporting a war to defend democracy when millions of women throughout America were still denied the right to vote. Rankin was fortunate enough to live in Montana, a state that did extend the franchise. But most women did not enjoy the same freedom. A few years later, spurred on by protests during the war, President Wilson would slowly lend his support for universal suffrage for women. In 1920, the dreams of generations of suffragettes came true when the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. As for the war, Wilson now had to sell it to a leery American public. The War Industries Board was created to oversee the creation of a wartime economy. Future president Herbert Hoover was selected to run The Food Administration. American output increased and America was able to feed itself, its soldiers, and its allies during the war. Hoover’s work proved invaluable. As Napoleon once claimed “an army marches on its stomach.” The Allies stomachs were full, while the enemy starved.
Despite the patriotic fervor and growing public support for the war, the Wilson administration turned a blind eye to the injustices happening within the country during the First World War. German Americans were the target of discrimination and harassment. Some German immigrants were tarred and feathered, others beaten, some lost their jobs. Orchestras stopped playing German composers and sauerkraut was dubbed “liberty cabbage.” As black Americans left the Jim Crow south in search of better jobs in the booming industrial north, beginning the so-called “Great Migration”, the northern cities were far from the land of milk and honey many imagined. While there was no Jim Crow in the north, racism and resentment persisted. Violent race riots broke out in the cities of St. Louis, Detroit, and most notably Chicago. The Wilson Administration did little to quell the unrest. While little may have been done to stop the civil unrest, the Wilson Administration had no qualms about stiefly civil liberties. The Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918 gave the federal government the authority to prosecute those who spoke out against the war. Socialists, anti-war “radicals”, and others were arrested and imprisoned. The Supreme Court even upheld the laws as constitutional in the case Schenck v. United States when it claimed that some limitations of first amendment freedoms were permissible. As for the war, America needed an army. It is important for students of history to understand that the United States has not alway been a world superpower with a large powerful standing army. Those are products of World War II and the Cold War. In 1917, the army and navy were small and inexperienced. Congress institution a draft and within months four million men had enlisted. Additionally, women were allowed to join the navy and marines in non combat roles for the first time in American history. African Americans served in large numbers in the army, but did so in segregated units. The new recruits were given a few months of training and shipped “Over There” to join the fight. The American Expeditionary Force under the leadership of General John J. Pershing arrived in Europe without a moment to spare. While inexperienced, the American army offered something that gave the Allies the upperhand: an endless supply of new troops. After years of war, Germany could not continue against the British, French, and their new unscathed ally from across the Atlantic. On the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month of 1918, the Germans laid down the arms. An armistice was signed and World War I came to an end. It was now time for peace. And from the perspective of the victorious British and French, vengeance.
The imperialist Britain and France wasted little time divvying up the territorial spoils of war, taking colonies for themselves from the defeated German, Austrian, and Ottoman Empires. At every turn Wilson butted heads with the allied leaders over their desire for more territory. At the end of the conference Wilson was able to wrangle few concessions from the victors. Most of his Fourteen Points were ignored. However, the League of Nations, Wilson’s brainchild, was included in the treaty. In spite of all of the other shortcomings of the ill-fated Treaty of Versailles, the creation of the League of Nations would be enough to justify the American President’s support. As for the conquered Germans, they were forced to accept the treaty with no input. The Germans had to accept full responsibility for the war and pay reparations. The treaty destroyed the German economy, humiliated it’s people, and would serve as fuel for the rise of Adolt Hilter little more than a decade later. Wilson however, came home with his head held high. The treaty had been signed and the League of Nations was going to be created. A new world order would be established based upon international law and cooperation. Or so he thought. In order for the treaty to be recognized by the United States, it required ratification by the Senate. A Senate that was controlled by the Republicans. The Republican leaders, who were already no fans of the Democratic President, were particularly offended that Wilson had not taken a single Republican member of Congress with him on his trip to Europe. They had been shut out of the negotiations. Now that the treaty was in their chamber, they were going to have their say. The powerful Republican leader Henry Cabot Lodge led the opposition. He made sure that the “world’s most deliberative body” would be deliberative indeed. He held hearings, offered amendments, insisted on more and more debate. The goal was to waterdown the treaty so it would be more favorable to the GOP who were growing more and more isolationist. The President was in no mood for negotiation. Wilson’s hard won prize, the League of Nations, was the greatest point of contention. Many Americans, and certainly the Republican Party, did not want to commit the United States to an organization that might once again draw the country into another European war. Unwilling to compromise with the Senate opposition, the President embarked on a whistlestop tour throughout the country in hopes of winning public support for the treaty. In September of 1919, after giving an impassioned speech in Pueblo, CO Wilson collapsed. After more than a year of leading a war effort, months of negotiations in Europe, and a bitter political fight in Washington, the President’s body could take no more. Days later he suffered a debilitating stroke. With half of his body paralyzed and partially blind, Woodrow Wilson’s presidency was effectively over. For months Wilson was hidden away in the White House. His health was failing him, he saw no one, and he did little to lead the country. The debate over the treaty went on in the Senate. Various versions of the treaty with amendments were offered but no version satisfied enough Senators or the President. The treaty failed. When Wilson learned of the treaty's defeat he remarked “They have shamed us in the eyes of the world.” Having not ratified the treaty, the United States did not join the League of Nations. Without the presence of the United States, whose economy, infrastructure, and population had not been devastated by the war, the League of Nations lacked leadership. It would go on to be impotent organization wholly unable to deal with the gathering storms of the 1920s and 30s. Woodrow Wilson left office in March 1921. For the last year of his presidency, Wilson, having never fully recovered from his stroke, was physically unable to lead. With no constitutional provision to remove him, the country operated with little more than a figurehead throughout 1920. However, within the White House there was, in a way, a new person in charge. Wilson’s wife Edith, whom he had married during his first term, became a kind of presidential gatekeeper. She decided who got to see the president, she reported his wishes to members of the administration, and she determined what information the president would receive on a daily basis. She was, for lack of a better term, a sort of acting president. It was an extraordinary moment at the end of an extraordinary presidential term.
In 1920, America was in a conservative mood. Tired of international involvement, tired of progressive change, Americans voted for Republican Warren G. Harding who pledged a “return to normalcy.” The Wilsonian vision of an activist government and international cooperation was over. Wilson and Edith remained in Washington for the remainder of his life. He marked the 5 year anniversary of the end of World War I by delivering a radio address still holding out hope that one day the United States would once again engage with the world and join the League of Nations. It was not to be. Two months later, Wilson was dead. His body was laid to rest in the Washington National Cathedral. Woodrow Wilson’s legacy is a complicated one. His record of legislative achievement is impressive by any president’s standards. His administration expanded protections for workers, leveled the economic playing field, and stabilized the nations currency. He, however reluctantly, lent his voice to the cause of women’s suffrage and so the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. He successfully led the United States through the First World War. In doing so, he not only helped bring an end to the greatest crisis the western world had ever known, but he also elevated the United States to a position of international leadership. Though the Treaty of Versailles proved to be a disaster for Europe, had the United States ratified it and joined the League of Nations, perhaps the history of the twentieth century would have looked far different. And yet, in sprite of these many domestic and international achievements, Wilson’s shameful record on race will forever cloud his legacy.
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