Woodrow Wilson: Encyclopedia - Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States (1913–1921). Initially an academic, he served as President of Princeton University and was the 45th state Governor of New Jersey (1911–1913). He was the second Democrat to serve two consecutive terms in the White House, the first having been Andrew Jackson, and his terms in office spanned his country's involvement in World War I.

Woodrow Wilson - Early life education and family

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia in 1856 to Reverend Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Janet Woodrow, making him the last president born in that state. His ancestry was Scots-Irish going back to Strabane, in modern-day Northern Ireland. Wilson spent the majority of his childhood in Augusta, Georgia and also lived in Columbia, South Carolina from 1870-1874 after his father accepted a teaching position at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He always claimed that his earliest memory was of hearing that Abraham Lincoln had been elected and that a war was coming. Wilson's father and mother were originally from Ohio, but sympathized with the South in the Civil War. They cared for wounded Confederate soldiers at their church and let their son go out and see Jefferson Davis paraded in handcuffs by the victorious Union Army. Wilson would forever recall standing "for a moment at General Lee's side and looking up into his face". (To End All Wars, p. 3.)

Despite suffering from dyslexia, Wilson taught himself shorthand to compensate for his difficulties and was able to achieve academically through determination and self-discipline, but never quite overcame his dyslexia. Wilson attended Davidson College for one year and then transferred to Princeton University, graduating in 1879. He was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternal organization. Afterward, Wilson studied law at the University of Virginia for one year. At Virginia, Wilson served as President of the Jefferson Society. After completing and publishing his dissertation, Congressional Government, in 1886, he received his Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University. (His carved initials are still visible on the underside of a table in the History Department.) Wilson remains the only American president to have earned a research doctoral degree.

Woodrow Wilson - Family

Wilson first met Ellen Axson in a Presbyterian church; she was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister who was expelled from the ministry. He spent several weeks courting her, but she did not respond. Months later, in 1883, he ran into her by chance in a train station. She was more receptive. He proposed to her, and they were married on June 24, 1885 in Savannah, Georgia. They had three daughters, Margaret in 1886, Jessie in 1887, and Eleanor in 1889. The three were all unmarried when he entered the White House, but that quickly changed. Jessie married Francis B. Sayre on November 25, 1913, and Eleanor married William G. McAdoo, the Secretary of the Treasury on May 7, 1914. Ellen died three months after Eleanor's wedding, on August 6.

Wilson later married Edith Bolling Galt, a widow, on December 18, 1915.

Woodrow Wilson - Political writings and academic career

Wilson came of age in the decades after the Civil War, when Congress was supreme—"the gist of all policy is decided by the legislature"—and corruption rampant. Instead of focusing on individuals in explaining where American politics went wrong, Wilson focused on the American constitutional structure. (Congressional Government, 180)

Under the influence of Walter Bagehot's The English Constitution, Wilson saw the American Constitution as pre-modern, cumbersome, and open to corruption. Before the vigorous presidencies of the turn of the 20th century, Wilson even favored a parliamentary system for the United States. Writing in the early 1880s in a journal edited by Henry Cabot Lodge, Wilson wrote

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.". (Congressional Government, 205)

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,

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 seigniories, 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 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." (ibid, 76). 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.

But by the time Wilson finished Congressional Government, Grover Cleveland was president, and Wilson had his faith in the United States government restored. By the time he was president, Wilson had seen vigorous presidencies from William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and 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." (Frozen Republic, 145)

Wilson served on the faculties of Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan University before joining the Princeton faculty as professor of jurisprudence and political economy in 1890. A popular teacher and respected scholar, 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".

Wilson was unanimously elected President of Princeton on June 9, 1902. In his inaugural address as Princeton's president, Wilson developed these themes, attempting to strike a balance that would please both populists and aristocrats in the audience.

As president, Wilson began a fund-raising campaign to bolster the university corporation. The curriculum guidelines he developed during his tenure as president of Princeton proved among the most important innovations in the field of higher education. He instituted the now common system of core requirements followed by two years of concentration in a selected area. When he attempted to curtail the influence of the elitist "social clubs", however, Wilson met with resistance from trustees and potential donors. He believed the system was smothering the intellectual and moral life of the undergraduates. Opposition from wealthy and powerful alumni further convinced Wilson of the undesirability of exclusiveness and moved him towards a more populist position in his politics.

Woodrow Wilson - Political career

Wilson was president of the American Political Science Association from 1910 to 1911. Through his published commentary on contemporary political matters, Wilson developed a national reputation and, with increasing seriousness, considered a public service career. In 1910, he received an unsolicited nomination for the governorship of New Jersey, which he eagerly accepted.

Woodrow Wilson - Presidency

Wilson edged out Champ Clark to win the presidential nomination in the presidential election of 1912. William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican vote, but many analysts argue that Wilson could have defeated either one of them (because Taft people would not vote for Roosevelt and vice versa).

Wilson experienced early success by implementing his "New Freedom" pledges of antitrust modification, tariff revision, and reform in banking and currency matters. His actions led to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System and Federal Trade Commission.

Following in the tradition of his predecessors William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt the "Trustbuster", Wilson also worked to regulate trusts. Congress passed 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, because individual officers of corporations could be held responsible if their companies violated the laws, bringing the consequences closer to home. This law was considered the "Magna Carta" of labor by Samuel Gompers becuse it legally lifted human labor out of the category of "a commodity or article of commerce". Also, the Federal Trade Commission was created to investigate corporations, publish reports, and stop "unfair" trade practices.

Suffrage was only one of the volatile issues Wilson faced during his presidency; 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?" Domestically, his measures for reform often met with opposition, although he did succeed in passing a bill instituting the Federal Reserve.

As a Southerner and product of an era in which racism was endemic, Wilson was not known as a friend of African Americans. His administration came during the worst period of racism in American history. His administration instituted segregation in federal government for the first time since Abraham Lincoln began desegregation in 1863. Wilson also regarded those whom he termed "hyphenated Americans" (German-Americans, Irish-Americans, etc.) with suspicion of dual loyalties. "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."

Wilson was staunchly against laws favoring any one group of people, whether it be railroad or business tycoons or ordinary workers. As a result of this, he refused to back legislation such as the Federal Farm Loan Act, the constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage, and any laws prohibiting child labor.

Woodrow Wilson - War Policy

Wilsons foreign policy is perhaps best described in a quote by himself made in 1907:

"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the law of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the soverignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused." - Woodrow Wilson, (1907)

Wilson spent 1914, 1915, 1916, and 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 army in anticipation of the threat of war. Wilson won the support of the peace element by arguing that 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. Wilson was able to narrowly win reelection in 1916 by picking up many votes that had gone to Roosevelt or Eugene V. Debs in 1912. His supporters praised him for avoiding war with Germany or Mexico, while maintaining a firm national policy. When Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare and made a clumsy attempt to get Mexico on its side in the Zimmermann Telegram, Wilson took America into the Great War as a “war to end all wars." He did not sign any alliance with Britain or France but operated as an independent force. 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.

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 like Walter Lippmann but would not tolerate those who tried to impede the war efforts, many of whom ended up in prison. His wartime policies were strongly pro-labor, and the American Federation of Labor and other unions saw enormous growth in membership and wages. There was no rationing, so consumer prices soared. As income taxes skyrocketed, 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 Committee), which filled the country with patriotic anti-German appeals.

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. After Russia left the war and became a pawn of Germany, Wilson supported the "White" side of the Russian civil war, with a naval blockade and ground forces in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, and Vladivostok.

Woodrow Wilson - Versailles 1919

After the Great War, 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 preserve territorial integrity and political independence among large and small nations alike.

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 Versailles 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 1920 Nobel Peace Prize. Receiving the award was bittersweet, however, because he was unable to convince Senate opponents, such as Henry Cabot Lodge, to support the Versailles Treaty or American entry into the League. United States membership, Wilson believed, was essential to ensuring lasting world peace.

Woodrow Wilson - Incapacity

After the war, in 1919, major strikes and race riots broke out. In the Red Scare, his attorney general ordered the Palmer Raids to deport foreign born agitators. In 1918 Wilson had the Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs arrested for trying to discourage enlistment in the army; his conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court, but he was pardoned later by President Warren G. Harding.

On October 2, 1919, Wilson suffered a serious stroke that almost totally incapacitated him. Although the 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 Bolling Galt Wilson, served as steward, selecting issues for his attention and delegating other issues to his cabinet heads. This was to date the most serious case of presidential disability in American history, and was cited as a key example why ratification of the 25th amendment was seen as important. Wilson broke with many of his closest political friends and allies in 1918-20. He dreamed of a third term but his Democratic party was in turmoil, with Irish and German voters outraged at the party; Wilson could barely move his own body.

Woodrow Wilson - 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 died there 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.

Woodrow Wilson - Cabinet

Woodrow Wilson - Major presidential acts

• Signed Revenue Act of 1913
• Signed Federal Reserve Act of 1913
• Signed Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916
• Signed Espionage Act of 1917
• Signed Sedition Act of 1918

Woodrow Wilson - Secretary

Joseph Patrick Tumulty 1913-1921

Woodrow Wilson - 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)

Woodrow Wilson - Memorials

Many memorials to Wilson exist:

• The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, established by Congress in 1968 as a "living memorial" to President Wilson, is a leading policy forum in Washington, D.C. and part of the Smithsonian Institution.
• Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs is a public policy school at Princeton University.
• Wilson House, an undergraduate dormitory at Johns Hopkins University, is named in his honor.
• Wilson Hall, an administrative building at James Madison University, is named in his honor.
• His portrait appeared on the U.S. $100,000 bill, issued in 1934. This bill was used only for transactions between the Federal Reserve and Treasury.
• The city of Bratislava (now capital of Slovakia, Europe) was named "Wilsonovo mesto" (Wilson City) after U.S. President Wilson for a short period of time after World War I. This was to commemorate President Wilson's support for creating the independent state of Czechoslovakia. For the same reason, the central railway station in Prague bears the name "Wilsonovo nádraží" (Wilson station).
• The Avenue du President Wilson in Paris, France, is named in honor of Wilson.
• Boulevard Wilson, a main street in Strasbourg, France, where the European Parliament is located, is named in honor of Wilson. Anyone arriving by train in Strasbourg will cross or travel on Boulevard Wilson, including those traveling to the European Parliament.
• Wilson has been the subject of books by two particularly noteworthy authors. Herbert Hoover's The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson is extremely sympathetic, and remains the only book written by one ex-President about another one. Sigmund Freud and William Bullitt's Thomas Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study is devastatingly unsympathetic, and was unpublished for 30 years after Freud's death.
• Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac River on the portion of the Capital Beltway which is also Interstate 95 is located in three jurisdictions, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia; more than any other Interstate Highway bridge. It is one of the most heavily-traveled bridges in the world.
• Wilson was an early automobile enthusiast and, while president, he took daily rides.

Woodrow Wilson - Media

See also

• U.S. presidential election, 1912
• U.S. presidential election, 1916
• History of the United States (1865–1918)
• USS Woodrow Wilson (SSBN-624) (An USN SSBN named after President Wilson.)
• Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Woodrow Wilson", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki