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Woodrow Wilson

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: USA Presidents

   Thomas Woodrow Wilson
   Woodrow Wilson
     __________________________________________________________________

   28th President of the United States
   In office
   March 4, 1913 –  March 4, 1921
   Vice President(s)   Thomas R. Marshall
   Preceded by William Howard Taft
   Succeeded by Warren G. Harding
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born December 28, 1856
   Staunton, Virginia
   Died February 3, 1924
   Washington, D.C.
   Political party Democratic
   Spouse Ellen Axson Wilson
   Edith Galt Wilson
   Religion Presbyterian
   Signature

   Thomas Woodrow Wilson ( December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the
   28th President of the United States. A devout Presbyterian and leading
   intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as president of
   Princeton University then became the reform governor of New Jersey in
   1910. With Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft dividing the
   Republican vote, Wilson was elected President as a Democrat in 1912. He
   proved highly successful in leading a Democratic Congress to pass major
   legislation including the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Trade
   Commission, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Underwood Tariff and the
   Federal Farm Loan Act. Re-elected in 1916, his second term centered on
   World War I. He tried to negotiate a peace in Europe but when Germany
   began unrestricted submarine warfare against American shipping he
   called on Congress to declare war. Ignoring military affairs, he
   focused on diplomacy and finance. On the home front he began the first
   effective draft in 1917, raised billions through liberty loans, imposed
   an income tax on the wealthy, set up the War Industries Board, promoted
   labor union growth, supervised agriculture and food production through
   the Lever act, took over control of the railroads, and suppressed
   left-wing anti-war movements. He paid surprisingly little attention to
   military affairs, but provided the funding and food supplies that made
   Allied victory in 1918 possible. He went to Paris in 1919 to create the
   League of Nations and shape the Treaty of Versailles. Wilson collapsed
   with a debilitating stroke in 1919, as the homefront saw massive
   strikes and race riots, and wartime prosperity turn into postwar
   depression. He refused to compromise with the Republicans who
   controlled Congress after 1918, so the Senate failed to ratify the
   Versailles Treaty. It went into effect anyway, but the U.S. never
   joined the League of Nations. The consensus of presidential experts
   ranks him in the first or second tier of best presidents, in a 1982
   poll it ranked him sixth out of thirty six presidents, and in a 2000
   poll it ranked him sixth again out of forty one presidents.

Early life, education and family

   Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia in 1856 as the
   third of four children to Reverend Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson
   (1822–1903) and Janet Mary Woodrow (1830–1888). His ancestry was
   Scots-Irish. His grandparents immigrated to the United States from
   Strabane, County Tyrone, in modern-day Northern Ireland. Wilson's
   father was originally from Ohio where his grandfather had been an
   abolitionist and his uncles were Republicans. But his parents moved
   South in 1851 and identified with the Confederacy. They kept slaves and
   set up a Sunday school for them. They cared for wounded soldiers at
   their church. The father also briefly served as a Confederate army
   chaplain. Wilson’s father was one of the founders of the Southern
   Presbyterian Church PCUS after it split from the northern Presbyterians
   in 1861. Joseph R. Wilson served as the first permanent clerk of the
   southern church’s General Assembly, was Stated Clerk from 1865-1898 and
   was Moderator of the PCUS General Assembly in 1879. Wilson spent the
   majority of his childhood, to age 14, in Augusta, Georgia, where his
   father was minister of the First Presbyterian Church. During
   Reconstruction he lived in the South Carolina state capital Columbia,
   South Carolina from 1870-1874, where his father was professor at the
   Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

   Wilson did not learn to read until he was about 12 years old. His
   difficulty reading may have indicated dyslexia or A.D.D., but as a
   teenager he taught himself shorthand to compensate and was able to
   achieve academically through determination and self-discipline. He
   studied at home under his father's guidance and took classes in a small
   school in Augusta. In 1873 he began studies at Davidson College in
   North Carolina, but stayed only for one year. He transferred to
   Princeton as a freshman, graduating in 1879. Beginning in his second
   year, he read the Federalist Papers, J. R. Green, Macaulay, Burke, John
   Bright, and Bagehot. He wrote an article for the Nassau Lit on
   Bismarck; and won a prize for an essay on William Pitt, 1st Earl of
   Chatham. He was active in the undergraduate discussion club, and
   organized a separate Liberal Debating Society. In 1879, Wilson attended
   law school at University of Virginia for one year but he never
   graduated. He later continued his studies while living at home in
   Wilmington, North Carolina.

Physical appearance

   "As an adult, Wilson was a man of above-average height and weight,
   standing around six feet four inches tall. From age eight, he wore
   eyeglasses, including pince nez glasses as an adult. He had black eyes
   and pale white hair." Wilson seemed to think that he was often in
   poorer health than he really was. However, he did suffer from
   hyper-tension at a relatively early age and may have suffered his first
   stroke at age 39. He bicycled regularly, including several bicycling
   vacations in the British lake district.

Law practice

   In January 1882, Wilson decided to start his first law practice in
   Atlanta. One of Wilson’s University of Virginia classmates, Edward
   Ireland Renick, invited Wilson to join his new law practice as partner.
   Wilson joined him there in May 1882. He passed the Georgia Bar in
   October 1882 in a performance rated as “not short of brilliant” by the
   presiding judge. - However, Renick and Wilson was a short-lived firm.
   With few cases to keep him occupied, Wilson quickly grew bored and
   disillusioned. Moreover, Wilson had studied law in order to eventually
   enter politics, but he discovered that he could not continue his study
   of government and simultaneously continue the reading of law necessary
   to stay proficient. In April 1883, Wilson applied to the new Johns
   Hopkins University to study for his Ph.D. and, in July 1883, Wilson
   left his law practice to begin his academic career.

Political writings and academic career

   Wilson came of age in the decades after the American Civil War, when
   Congress was supreme— "the gist of all policy is decided by the
   legislature" —and corruption was rampant. Instead of focusing on
   individuals in explaining where American politics went wrong, Wilson
   focused on the American constitutional structure.

   Under the influence of Walter Bagehot's The English Constitution,
   Wilson saw the United States Constitution as pre-modern, cumbersome,
   and open to corruption. An admirer of Parliament (though he first
   visited London in 1919), Wilson favored a parliamentary system for the
   United States. Writing in the early 1880s, Wilson wrote:

          "I ask you to put this question to yourselves, should we not
          draw the Executive and Legislature closer together? Should we
          not, on the one hand, give the individual leaders of opinion in
          Congress a better chance to have an intimate party in
          determining who should be president, and the president, on the
          other hand, a better chance to approve himself a statesman, and
          his advisers capable men of affairs, in the guidance of
          Congress?"

   Wilson started Congressional Government, his best known political work,
   as an argument for a parliamentary system, but Wilson was impressed by
   Grover Cleveland, and Congressional Government emerged as a critical
   description of America's system, with frequent negative comparisons to
   Westminster. Wilson himself claimed, "I am pointing out
   facts—diagnosing, not prescribing, remedies.".

   Wilson believed that America's intricate system of checks and balances
   was the cause of the problems in American governance. He said that the
   divided power made it impossible for voters to see who was accountable
   for ill-doing. If government behaved badly, Wilson asked,

          "...how is the schoolmaster, the nation, to know which boy needs
          the whipping? ... Power and strict accountability for its use
          are the essential constituents of good government.... It is,
          therefore, manifestly a radical defect in our federal system
          that it parcels out power and confuses responsibility as it
          does. The main purpose of the Convention of 1787 seems to have
          been to accomplish this grievous mistake. The 'literary theory'
          of checks and balances is simply a consistent account of what
          our Constitution makers tried to do; and those checks and
          balances have proved mischievous just to the extent which they
          have succeeded in establishing themselves... [the Framers] would
          be the first to admit that the only fruit of dividing power had
          been to make it irresponsible."

   The longest section of Congressional Government is on the United States
   House of Representatives, where Wilson pours out scorn for the
   committee system. Power, Wilson wrote, "is divided up, as it were, into
   forty-seven signatories, in each of which a Standing Committee is the
   court baron and its chairman lord proprietor. These petty barons, some
   of them not a little powerful, but none of them within reach [of] the
   full powers of rule, may at will exercise an almost despotic sway
   within their own shires, and may sometimes threaten to convulse even
   the realm itself.". Wilson said that the committee system was
   fundamentally undemocratic, because committee chairs, who ruled by
   seniority, were responsible to no one except their constituents, even
   though they determined national policy.

   In addition to their undemocratic nature, Wilson also believed that the
   Committee System facilitated corruption.

          "the voter, moreover, feels that his want of confidence in
          Congress is justified by what he hears of the power of corrupt
          lobbyists to turn legislation to their own uses. He hears of
          enormous subsidies begged and obtained... of appropriations made
          in the interest of dishonest contractors; he is not altogether
          unwarranted in the conclusion that these are evils inherent in
          the very nature of Congress; there can be no doubt that the
          power of the lobbyist consists in great part, if not altogether,
          in the facility afforded him by the Committee system.

   By the time Wilson finished Congressional Government, Grover Cleveland
   was President, and Wilson had his faith in the United States government
   restored. When William Jennings Bryan captured the Democratic
   nomination from Cleveland's supporters in 1896, however, Wilson refused
   to stand by the ticket. Instead, he cast his ballot for John M. Palmer,
   the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Party (United
   States), or Gold Democrats, a short-lived party that supported a gold
   standard, low tariffs, and limited government.

   After experiencing the vigorous presidencies from William McKinley and
   Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson no longer entertained thoughts of
   parliamentary government at home. In his last scholarly work in 1908,
   Constitutional Government of the United States, Wilson said that the
   presidency "will be as big as and as influential as the man who
   occupies it". By the time of his presidency, Wilson merely hoped that
   Presidents could be party leaders in the same way prime ministers were.
   Wilson also hoped that the parties could be reorganized along
   ideological, not geographic, lines. "Eight words," Wilson wrote,
   "contain the sum of the present degradation of our political parties:
   No leaders, no principles; no principles, no parties."

Academic career

   Wilson served on the faculties of Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan
   University (where he also coached the football team) before joining the
   Princeton faculty as professor of jurisprudence and political economy
   in 1890. While there, he was one of the faculty members of the
   short-lived coordinate college, Evelyn College for Women.

   Wilson delivered an oration at Princeton's sesquicentennial celebration
   (1896) entitled "Princeton in the Nation's Service". (This has become a
   frequently alluded-to motto of the University, sometimes expanded to
   "Princeton in the World's Service.") In this famous speech, he outlined
   his vision of the university in a democratic nation, calling on
   institutions of higher learning "to illuminate duty by every lesson
   that can be drawn out of the past".
   Prospect House, located in the center of Princeton's campus, was
   Wilson's residence during his term as president of the university.
   Enlarge
   Prospect House, located in the centre of Princeton's campus, was
   Wilson's residence during his term as president of the university.

   The trustees promoted Professor Wilson to president of Princeton in
   1902. He had bold plans. Although the school's endowment was barely $4
   million, he sought $2 million for a preceptorial system of teaching, $1
   million for a school of science, and nearly $3 million for new
   buildings and salary raises. As a long-term objective, Wilson sought $3
   million for a graduate school and $2.5 million for schools of
   jurisprudence and electrical engineering, as well as a museum of
   natural history. He achieved little of that because he was not a strong
   fund raiser, but he did increase the faculty from 112 to 174 men, most
   of them personally selected as outstanding teachers. The curriculum
   guidelines he developed proved important progressive innovations in the
   field of higher education. To enhance the role of expertise, Wilson
   instituted academic departments and a system of core requirements where
   students met in groups of six with preceptors, followed by two years of
   concentration in a selected major. He tried to raise admission
   standards and to replace the "gentleman C" with serious study. Wilson
   aspired, as he told alumni, "to transform thoughtless boys performing
   tasks into thinking men."

   In 1906-10, he attempted to curtail the influence of the elitist
   "social clubs" by moving the students into colleges. This was met with
   resistance from many alumni. Wilson felt that to compromise "would be
   to temporize with evil.". Even more damaging was his confrontation with
   Andrew Fleming West, Dean of the graduate school, and West's ally,
   former President Grover Cleveland, a trustee. Wilson wanted to
   integrate the proposed graduate building into the same area with the
   undergraduate colleges; West wanted them separated. West outmaneuvered
   Wilson and the trustees rejected Wilson's plan for colleges in 1908,
   and then endorsed West's plans in 1909. The national press covered the
   confrontation as a battle of the elites (West) versus democracy
   (Wilson). Wilson, after considering resignation, decided to take up
   invitations to move into New Jersey state politics. - In 1910, Wilson
   was elected governor of New Jersey, and served in this office until
   becoming President in 1913. Wilson experienced early success by
   implementing his "New Freedom" pledges of antitrust modification,
   tariff revision, and reform in banking and currency matters.

Campaign for Presidency in 1912

   Gov. Wilson ran for President on the Democratic ticket. The Democratic
   National Committee met in Baltimore in 1912 to select Wilson as their
   candidate. He then chose the officers of the Democratic National
   Committee that would serve the campaign: Charles R. Crane (Taft's
   Ambassador to China), Vice-President of the Finance Committee; Rolla
   Wells, twice mayor of St. Louis (from 1901 to 1909), and later Governor
   of the Federal Reserve Bank at St. Louis, as Treasurer; Henry
   Morgenthau, Sr., President of the Finance Committee. His running mate
   was Gov. Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana.

   In the election Wilson ran against two major candidates, incumbent
   President William Howard Taft and former president Theodore Roosevelt,
   who broke with Taft and the Republican Party and created the
   Progressive Party. The election was bitterly contested. Vice President
   James S. Sherman died on October 30, 1912, less than a week before the
   election, leaving Taft without a running mate. And with the Republican
   Party divided, Wilson captured the presidency handily on November 5.
   Wilson won with just 41.8% of the votes, but he won 435 electoral
   votes.

Presidency 1913-1921

   Wilson experienced early success by implementing his " New Freedom"
   pledges of antitrust modification, tariff revision, and reform in
   banking and currency matters.

Federal Reserve 1913

   Historians agree that, "The Federal Reserve Act was the most important
   legislation of the Wilson era and one of the most important pieces of
   legislation in the history of the United States." Wilson had to
   outmaneuver bankers and enemies of banks, North and South, Democrats
   and Republicans to secure passage of the Federal Reserve system in late
   1913.[Link 1954 pp 43-53; Link 1956 pp 199-240] He took a plan that had
   been designed by conservative Republicans—led by Nelson W. Aldrich and
   banker Paul M. Warburg—and passed it. However, Wilson had to find a
   middle ground between those who supported the Aldrich Plan and those
   who opposed it, including the powerful agrarian wing of the party, led
   by William Jennings Bryan, which strenuously denounced banks and Wall
   Street. They wanted a government-owned central bank which could print
   paper money whenever Congress wanted. Wilson’s plan still allowed the
   large banks to have important influence, but Wilson went beyond the
   Aldrich plan and created a central board made up of persons appointed
   by the President and approved by Congress who would outnumber the board
   members who were bankers. Moreover, Wilson convinced Bryan’s supporters
   that because Federal Reserve notes were obligations of the government,
   the plan fit their demands. Wilson’s plan also decentralized the
   Federal Reserve system into 12 districts. This was designed to weaken
   the influence of the powerful New York banks, a key demand of Bryan’s
   allies in the South and West. This decentralization was a key factor in
   winning the support of Congressman Carter Glass (D-VA) although he
   objected to making paper currency a federal obligation. Glass was one
   of the leaders of the currency reformers in the US House and without
   his support, any plan was doomed to fail. The final plan passed, in
   December 1913, despite opposition by bankers, who felt it gave too much
   control to Washington, and by some reformers, who felt it allowed
   bankers to maintain too much power.

   Wilson named Warburg and other prominent bankers to direct the new
   system. Despite the reformers' hopes, the New York branch dominated the
   Fed and thus power remained in Wall Street. The new system began
   operations in 1915 and played a major role in financing the Allied and
   American war efforts.

Other economic policies

   In 1913, the Underwood tariff lowered the tariff. The revenue thereby
   lost was replaced by a new federal income tax (authorized by the 16th
   Amendment, which had been sponsored by the Republicans). The "Seaman's
   Act" of 1915 improved working conditions for merchant sailors. As
   response to the RMS Titanic disaster, it also required all ships to be
   retrofitted with lifeboats. Ironically, although in the long term the
   lifeboat provision would save lives, it may have contributed to the "
   Eastland" disaster in which the top-heavy cruise ship capsized and sank
   in Chicago—killing over 800 tourists.

   A series of programs was targeted at farmers. The "Smith Lever" act of
   1914 created the modern system of agricultural extension agents
   sponsored by the state agricultural colleges. The agents taught new
   techniques to farmers. The 1916 "Federal Farm Loan Board" issued
   low-cost long-term mortgages to farmers.

   Child labor was curtailed by the Keating-Owen act of 1916, but the U.S.
   Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1918. Additional child
   labor bills would not be enacted until the 1930s.

   The railroad brotherhoods threatened in summer 1916 to shut down the
   national transportation system. Wilson tried to bring labor and
   management together, but when management refused he had Congress pass
   the "Adamson Act" in September 1916, which avoided the strike by
   imposing an 8-hour work day in the industry (at the same pay as
   before). It helped Wilson gain union support for his reelection; the
   act was approved by the Supreme Court.
   Wilson uses tariff, currency and anti-trust laws to prime the pump and
   get the economy working in a 1913 political cartoon
   Enlarge
   Wilson uses tariff, currency and anti-trust laws to prime the pump and
   get the economy working in a 1913 political cartoon

Antitrust

   Wilson broke with the "big-lawsuit" tradition of his predecessors Taft
   and Roosevelt as " Trustbusters", finding a new approach to encouraging
   competition through the Federal Trade Commission, which stopped
   "unfair" trade practices. In addition, he pushed through Congress the
   Clayton Antitrust Act making certain business practices illegal (such
   as price discrimination, agreements forbidding retailers from handling
   other companies’ products, and directorates and agreements to control
   other companies). The power of this legislation was greater than
   previous anti-trust laws, because individual officers of corporations
   could be held responsible if their companies violated the laws. More
   importantly, the new laws set out clear guidelines that corporations
   could follow, a dramatic improvement over the previous uncertainties.
   This law was considered the "Magna Carta" of labor by Samuel Gompers
   because it ended union liability antitrust laws. In 1916, under threat
   of a national railroad strike, he approved legislation that increased
   wages and cut working hours of railroad employees; there was no strike.

   Until Wilson announced his support for the suffrage amendment, a group
   of women calling themselves the Silent Sentinels protested in front of
   the White House, holding banners such as "Mr. President—What will you
   do for woman suffrage?"

War policy—World War I

   Wilson spent 1914 through the beginning of 1917 trying to keep America
   out of the war in Europe. He offered to be a mediator, but neither the
   Allies nor the Central Powers took his requests seriously. Republicans,
   led by Theodore Roosevelt, strongly criticized Wilson’s refusal to
   build up the U.S. Army in anticipation of the threat of war. Wilson won
   the support of the U.S. peace element by arguing that an army buildup
   would provoke war. He vigorously protested Germany’s use of submarines
   as illegal, causing his Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to
   resign in protest in 1915.

   While German submarines were sinking allied ships, Britain had declared
   a blockade of Germany, preventing neutral shipping carrying
   “contraband” goods to Germany. Wilson protested this violation of
   neutral rights by London. However, his protests to the British were not
   viewed as being as forceful as those he directed towards Germany. In
   part, this may have reflected Wilson’s bias towards Britain, but it
   also reflects the fact that while Britain was violating international
   law towards neutral shipping, their violations were not costing lives,
   while German submarine warfare not only violated international -->
   </gallery>

   |} law, it also resulted in civilian deaths.

Election of 1916

   Renominated in 1916, Wilson's major campaign slogan was "He kept us out
   of the war" referring to his administration's avoiding open conflict
   with Germany or Mexico while maintaining a firm national policy.
   Wilson, however, never promised to keep out of war regardless of
   provocation. In his acceptance speech on September 2, 1916, Wilson
   pointedly warned Germany that submarine warfare that took American
   lives would not be tolerated:

          The nation that violates these essential rights must expect to
          be checked and called to account by direct challenge and
          resistance. It at once makes the quarrel in part our own.

   Wilson narrowly won the election, defeating Republican candidate
   Charles Evans Hughes. As governor of New York from 1907-1910, Hughes
   had a progressive record strikingly similar to Wilson's as governor of
   New Jersey. However, Hughes had to try to hold together a coalition of
   conservative Taft supporters and progressive Roosevelt partisans and so
   his campaign never seemed to take a definite form. Wilson ran on his
   record, and ignored Hughes reserving his attacks for Roosevelt. When
   asked why he did not attack Hughes directly Wilson told a friend “Never
   murder a man who is committing suicide.”

   The final result was exceptionally close and the result was in doubt
   for several days. When the early results came in on the evening of
   election day, it looked as if Hughes would win and both candidates went
   to bed believing that Wilson had lost. The vote came down to several
   close states. Wilson won California by 3,773 votes out of almost a
   million votes cast and New Hampshire by 54 votes. Hughes won Minnesota
   by 393 votes out of over 358,000. In the final count, Wilson had 277
   electoral votes vs. Hughes 254. Wilson was able to win reelection in
   1916 by picking up many votes that had gone to Teddy Roosevelt or
   Eugene V. Debs in 1912.

Second term

Decision for War, 1917

   When Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 and
   made a clumsy attempt to enlist Mexico as an ally (see Zimmermann
   Telegram), Wilson took America into World War I as a war "to make the
   world safe for democracy." He did not sign a formal alliance with Great
   Britain or France but operated as an "Associated" power. He raised a
   massive army through conscription and gave command to General John J.
   Pershing, allowing Pershing a free hand as to tactics, strategy and
   even diplomacy.
   President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in official
   relations with Germany. February 3, 1917.
   Enlarge
   President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in official
   relations with Germany. February 3, 1917.

   Wilson had decided by then that the war had become a real threat to
   humanity. Unless the U.S. threw its weight into the war, as he stated
   in his declaration of war speech, Western civilization itself could be
   destroyed. His statement announcing a "war to end all wars" meant that
   he wanted to build a basis for peace that would prevent future
   catastrophic wars and needless death and destruction. This provided the
   basis of Wilson's Fourteen Points, which were intended to resolve
   territorial disputes, ensure free trade and commerce, and establish a
   peacemaking organization, which later emerged as the League of Nations.

   To stop defeatism at home, Wilson pushed the Espionage Act of 1917 and
   the Sedition Act of 1918 through Congress to suppress anti-British,
   pro-German, or anti-war opinions. He welcomed socialists who supported
   the war, such as Walter Lippmann, but would not tolerate those who
   tried to impede the war or worse, assassinate government officials, and
   pushed for deportation of foreign-born radicals. His wartime policies
   were strongly pro-labor, though again, he had no love for radical
   unions like the Industrial Workers of the World. The American
   Federation of Labor and other 'moderate' unions saw enormous growth in
   membership and wages during Wilson's administration. There was no
   rationing, so consumer prices soared. As income taxes increased,
   white-collar workers suffered. Appeals to buy war bonds were highly
   successful, however. Bonds had the result of shifting the cost of the
   war to the affluent 1920s.

   Wilson set up the United States Committee on Public Information, headed
   by George Creel (thus its popular name, Creel Commission), which filled
   the country with patriotic anti-German appeals and conducted various
   forms of censorship.

Other foreign affairs

   Between 1914 and 1918, the United States intervened in Latin America,
   particularly in Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, and Panama. The U.S. maintained
   troops in Nicaragua throughout his administration and used them to
   select the president of Nicaragua and then to force Nicaragua to pass
   the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty. American troops in Haiti forced the Haitian
   legislature to choose the candidate Wilson selected as Haitian
   president. American troops occupied Haiti between 1915 and 1934.

   After Russia left the war in 1917 following the Bolshevik Revolution
   and started providing help to the Germans, the Allies sent troops to
   prevent a German or Bolshevik takeover of allied-provided weapons,
   munitions and other supplies which had been previously shipped as aid
   to the Czarist government. Wilson sent expeditionary forces to assist
   the withdrawal of Czech exiles along the Trans-Siberian Railway, hold
   key port cities at Arkangel and Vladivostok, and safeguard supplies
   sent to the Tsarist forces. Though not sent to engage the bolsheviks,
   the U.S. forces did have several clashes with them. Wilson withdrew the
   soldiers on April 1, 1920, though some remained as late as 1922. As
   Davis and Trani conclude, "Wilson, Lansing, and Colby helped lay the
   foundations for the later Cold War and policy of containment. There was
   no military confrontation, armed standoff, or arms race. Yet, certain
   basics were there: suspicion, mutual misunderstandings, dislike, fear,
   ideological hostility, and diplomatic isolation....Each side was driven
   by ideology, by capitalism versus communism. Each country sought to
   reconstruct the world. When the world resisted, pressure could be
   used."

Versailles 1919

   Wilson Returning From the Versailles Peace Conference 1919.
   Enlarge
   Wilson Returning From the Versailles Peace Conference 1919.

   After World War I, Wilson participated in negotiations with the stated
   aim of assuring statehood for formerly oppressed nations and an
   equitable peace. On January 8, 1918, Wilson made his famous Fourteen
   Points address, introducing the idea of a League of Nations, an
   organization with a stated goal of helping to preserve territorial
   integrity and political independence among large and small nations
   alike. Wilson, a stauch opponent of anti-Semitism was sympathetic to
   the plight of Jews, especially in Poland. He acquiesced in the British
   Balfour Declaration regarding a Jewish homeland in Palestine, but did
   not endorse Zionism (which was highly controversial among American
   Jews.)

   Wilson intended the Fourteen Points as a means toward ending the war
   and achieving an equitable peace for all the nations. He spent six
   months at Paris for the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (making him the
   first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office). He worked
   tirelessly to promote his plan. The charter of the proposed League of
   Nations was incorporated into the conference's Treaty of Versailles.

   For his peacemaking efforts, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace
   Prize. However, Wilson failed to win Senate support for ratification
   and the United States never joined the League. Republicans under Henry
   Cabot Lodge controlled the Senate after the 1918 elections, but Wilson
   refused to give them a voice at Paris and refused to agree to Lodge's
   proposed changes. The key point of disagreement was whether the League
   would diminish the power of Congress to declare war. Historians
   generally have come to regard Wilson's failure to win U.S. entry into
   the League as perhaps the biggest mistake of his administration, and
   even as one of the largest failures of any American presidency.

Post war: 1919-20

   Wilson had ignored the problems of demobilization after the war, and
   the process was chaotic and violent. Four million soldiers were sent
   home with little planning, little money and few benefits. A wartime
   bubble in prices of farmland burst, leaving many farmers bankrupt or
   deeply in debt after they purchased new land. In 1919, major strikes in
   steel and meatpacking broke out. Serious race riots hit Chicago and
   other cities.

   After a series of bombings by radical anarchist groups in New York and
   elsewhere, Wilson directed Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to put a
   stop to the violence. Palmer then ordered the Palmer Raids, with the
   aim of collecting evidence on violent radical groups, to deport
   foreign-born agitators, and jail domestic ones.

   Wilson broke with many of his closest political friends and allies in
   1918-20, including Colonel House. Historians speculate that a series of
   minor strokes may have affected his personality. He desired a third
   term, but his Democratic party was in turmoil, with German voters
   outraged at their wartime harassment, and Irish voters angry at his
   failure to support Irish independence.

Women's Suffrage

   On January 9, 1918, after years of lobbying and public demonstrations
   by the women's suffrage movement (including a 5000 woman march which
   had preceded his 1913 inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, nearly
   causing a riot), Wilson finally announced his support of the 19th
   amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. The next day, the House
   of Representatives narrowly passed the amendment but the Senate refused
   to even debate it until October. When the Senate voted on the amendment
   in October, it failed by two votes.

   In response, the National Women's Party and other suffrage
   organizations effectively urged male citizens to vote against
   anti-suffrage senators up for election in the fall of 1918. After the
   1918 election, most members of Congress were pro-suffrage. On May 21,
   1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment by a vote of
   304 to 89, and 2 weeks later on June 4, the Senate finally followed,
   where the amendment passed 56 to 25. It was ratified on August 18,
   1920, upon its ratification by Tennessee, the thirty-sixth state to do
   so. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on
   August 26, 1920. On February 27, 1922, a challenge to the 19th
   Amendment was rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in
   Leser v. Garnett.

Incapacity

   On October 2, 1919, Wilson suffered a serious stroke that almost
   totally incapacitated him; he was paralyzed on his left side and blind
   in his left eye. For a few months at least, he was confined to a
   wheelchair. Afterwards he could walk only with the assistance of a
   cane. The full extent of his disability was kept from the public until
   after his death.

   Wilson was purposely, with few exceptions, kept out of the presence of
   Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, his cabinet or Congressional
   visitors to the White House for the remainder of his presidential term.
   Meanwhile, his second wife, Edith Wilson, served as steward, selecting
   issues for his attention and delegating other issues to his cabinet
   heads. This was, as of 2006, the most serious case of presidential
   disability in American history and was later cited as a key example why
   ratification of the 25th Amendment was seen as important.

Significant presidential acts

     * Signed Revenue Act of 1913
     * Signed Federal Reserve Act of 1913
     * Signed Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916
     * Signed National Park Service Act of 1916
     * Signed Jones Act of 1917
     * Signed Espionage Act of 1917
     * Signed Sedition Act of 1918
     * Vetoed Volstead Act in 1919. It was passed over his veto.

Administration and Cabinet

   Wilson's chief of staff ("Secretary") was Joseph Patrick Tumulty
   1913-1921, but he was largely upstaged after 1916 by Wilson's second
   wife, Edith Bolling Wilson, who assumed full control of Wilson's
   schedule after September 1919. An important foreign policy advisor and
   confidant was "Colonel" Edward M. House.
   Woodrow Wilson and his cabinet in the Cabinet Room
   Enlarge
   Woodrow Wilson and his cabinet in the Cabinet Room
   OFFICE                    NAME                TERM
   President                 Woodrow Wilson      1913–1921
   Vice President            Thomas R. Marshall  1913–1921
   Secretary of State        William J. Bryan    1913–1915
                             Robert Lansing      1915–1920
                             Bainbridge Colby    1920–1921
   Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo   1913–1918
                             Carter Glass        1918–1920
                             David F. Houston    1920–1921
   Secretary of War          Lindley M. Garrison 1913–1916
                             Newton D. Baker     1916–1921
   Attorney General          James C. McReynolds 1913–1914
                             Thomas W. Gregory   1914–1919
                             A. Mitchell Palmer  1919–1921
   Postmaster General        Albert S. Burleson  1913–1921
   Secretary of the Navy     Josephus Daniels    1913–1921
   Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane    1913–1920
                             John B. Payne       1920–1921
   Secretary of Agriculture  David F. Houston    1913–1920
                             Edwin T. Meredith   1920–1921
   Secretary of Commerce     William C. Redfield 1913–1919
                             Joshua W. Alexander 1919–1921
   Secretary of Labor        William B. Wilson   1913–1921

Supreme Court appointments

   Wilson appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the
   United States:
     * James Clark McReynolds – 1914
     * Louis Dembitz Brandeis – 1916
     * John Hessin Clarke – 1916

Wilson and race

   Quotation from Woodrow Wilson's History of the American People as
   reproduced in the film The Birth of a Nation.
   Enlarge
   Quotation from Woodrow Wilson's History of the American People as
   reproduced in the film The Birth of a Nation.

   While president of Princeton University, Wilson discouraged blacks from
   even applying for admission. Princeton would not admit its first black
   student until the 1940s.

   Wilson allowed many of his cabinet officials to establish official
   segregation in most federal government offices, in some departments for
   the first time since 1863. "His administration imposed full racial
   segregation in Washington and hounded from office considerable numbers
   of black federal employees." Wilson and his cabinet members fired many
   black Republican office holders, but also appointed a few black
   Democrats. W.E.B. DuBois, a leader of the NAACP, campaigned for Wilson
   and in 1918 was offered an Army commission in charge of dealing with
   race relations. (DuBois accepted but failed his Army physical and did
   not serve.) When a delegation of blacks protested his discriminatory
   actions, Wilson told them that "segregation is not a humiliation but a
   benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen." In 1914, he
   told New York Times that "If the colored people made a mistake in
   voting for me, they ought to correct it."

   Wilson was understandably attacked by African-Americans for his
   actions, but ironically, he was also attacked by southern hard line
   racists, such as Georgian Thomas E. Watson, for not going far enough in
   restricting black employment in the federal government. The segregation
   introduced into the federal workforce by the Wilson administration was
   kept in place by the succeeding Republican presidents and was not
   finally rescinded until the Truman Administration.

   Woodrow Wilson's History of the American People explained the Ku Klux
   Klan of the late 1860s as the natural outgrowth of Reconstruction, a
   lawless reaction to a lawless period. Wilson noted that the Klan “began
   to attempt by intimidation what they were not allowed to attempt by the
   ballot or by any ordered course of public action.” . In short, Wilson
   accepted the Southern version of Reconstruction with Southern whites
   being victimized.

   Wilson's words were repeatedly quoted in the film The Birth of a
   Nation, which has come under fire for racism. Thomas Dixon, author of
   the novel The Clansman upon which the film is based, was one of
   Wilson's graduate school classmates at Johns Hopkins in 1883-1884.
   Dixon arranged a special White House preview (this was the first time a
   film was shown in the White House) without telling Wilson what the film
   was about. Wilson most likely did not make the statement, "It is like
   writing history with lightning, my only regret is that it is all so
   terribly true." That was invented by a Hollywood press agent. In fact,
   Wilson felt he had been tricked by Dixon and publicly said he did not
   like the film; Wilson blocked its showing during the war. In a 1923
   letter to Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas Wilson noted of the reborn
   Klan, “...no more obnoxious or harmful organization has ever shown
   itself in our affairs.”

White ethnics

   Wilson had some harsh words to say about immigrants in his history
   books. However, after he entered politics in 1910, Wilson worked to
   integrate new immigrants into the Democratic party, into the army, and
   into American life. For example, the war bond campaigns were set up so
   that ethnic groups could boast how much money they gave. He demanded in
   return during the war that they repudiate any loyalty to the enemy.

   Irish Americans were powerful in the Democratic party and opposed going
   to war alongside their enemy Britain, especially after the violent
   suppression of the Easter Rebellion of 1916. Wilson won them over in
   1917 by promising to ask Britain to give Ireland its independence. At
   Versailles, however, he reneged and the Irish-American community
   vehemently denounced him. Wilson, in turn, blamed the Irish Americans
   and German Americans for the lack of popular support for the League of
   Nations, saying,

   "There is an organized propaganda against the League of Nations and
   against the treaty proceeding from exactly the same sources that the
   organized propaganda proceeded from which threatened this country here
   and there with disloyalty, and I want to say--I cannot say too
   often--any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger
   that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he
   gets ready."

Later life

   In 1921, Wilson and his wife retired from the White House to a home in
   the Embassy Row section of Washington, D.C. Wilson continued going for
   daily drives and attended Keith's vaudeville theatre on Saturday
   nights. Wilson died in his S Street home on February 3, 1924. He was
   buried in Washington National Cathedral. Mrs. Wilson stayed in the home
   another 37 years, dying on December 28, 1961. Mrs. Wilson left the home
   to the National Trust for Historic Preservation to be made into a
   museum honoring her husband. Woodrow Wilson House opened as a museum in
   1964.

Trivia

Personal facts

   The final resting place of Woodrow Wilson at the Washington National
   Cathedral
   Enlarge
   The final resting place of Woodrow Wilson at the Washington National
   Cathedral
     * Wilson was an early automobile enthusiast, and he took daily rides
       while he was President. His favorite car was a 1919 Pierce-Arrow.
       On his last birthday in 1923, he was given a new Rolls Royce Silver
       Shadow as a gift by friends from Princeton.
     * Wilson was an avid fan of the New York Giants and Washington
       Senators baseball clubs.
     * His earliest memory, from age 3, was of hearing that Abraham
       Lincoln had been elected and that a war was coming.
     * Wilson would forever recall standing for a moment at Robert E.
       Lee's side and looking up into his face.
     * As a boy, Wilson owned a greyhound named "Mountain Boy."
     * Wilson (born in Virginia and raised in Georgia) was the first
       president from any state that had joined the Confederate States of
       America to be elected since 1848 (Zachary Taylor, born in
       Virginia), and the first from there to take office since 1865
       (Andrew Johnson born in North Carolina).
     * Wilson was also the first Democrat elected to the presidency since
       Grover Cleveland in 1892. The next Democrat elected was FDR.
     * Wilson was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.
     * One of Wilson's grandsons (The Very Reverend Francis Sayre, Jr) was
       Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, where Wilson's tomb is
       located. (Another grandson, Woodrow Wilson Sayre, climbed Mount
       Everest in 1962 reaching an altitude of 25,500 feet.)
     * Wilson was the first President to speak on national radio although
       he did so in November 1923, after having left office.
     * Wilson appeared on the now-out of print (but still technically
       legal tender) $100,000 bill The bill was used only to transfer
       money between Federal Reserve banks.

   Wilson on the $100,000 bill
   Wilson on the $100,000 bill
     * Wilson is the only U.S. President buried in Washington, D.C.
     * Wilson's first wife Ellen Louise Wilson was related to Confederate
       General James Longstreet and Union General/President U.S. Grant;
       Wilson's second wife Edith Bolling Wilson was descended from
       Pocahontas.

Personal scholarship

     * Wilson remains the only American President to have earned a
       research doctoral degree.
     * His carved initials are still visible on the underside of a table
       in the History Department at Johns Hopkins University.
     * Wilson was one of only two Presidents (Theodore Roosevelt was the
       first) to become president of the American Historical Association.
     * Wilson was president of the American Political Science Association
       from 1910 to 1911.

In Fiction

   In Harry Turtledove's " Great War" trilogy of alternate history novels,
   Wilson is elected 9th President of the Confederate States of America on
   the Whig ticket in 1910.
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