Debate about Woodrow Wilson has raged since the war and still does today.
Who was he?
A brilliant statesman?
Just another racist?
Both?
Neither?
It’s been said that anyone who followed Wilson down a political path was almost certain
to meet him coming in the opposite direction, so let’s take a look at Woodrow Wilson.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to our Great War bio series of specials “Who did what in
World War One?” today featuring Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson’s biographer wrote, “Everything about Woodrow Wilson is arguable, starting
with the date of his birth”.
He was born between 11 PM and 1 AM, the night of the 27th and 28th of December, 1856, in
Staunton, Virginia.
His father was a Presbyterian Minister and his mother was actually British.
Woodrow would be a lifelong Anglophile.
He greatly admired his father, who, though known as one of the more liberal southern
religious figures, did not denounce slavery because it wasn’t forbidden in the scriptures,
and “man could not forbid what God could not”.
The Civil War and the Reconstruction were the defining events of Woodrow’s childhood,
and seeing scenes like Jefferson Davis marched through town in chains very much influenced
his handling of defeated nations later in life.
Obviously, the enormous racial issues in Virginia then had an impact on young Wilson, though
it seems from his writing that he held a rather generic southern view of race relations at
He attended Davidson College, but left for the College of New Jersey, which would later
be known as Princeton.
After Princeton, he went to the University of Virginia Law School, but dropped out.
He then moved to Atlanta where he worked and studied law independently and passed the BAR.
However, he found actually practicing law boring and he eventually enrolled at Johns
Hopkins in 1883, where he got his PhD in history and political science.
Around this time, Wilson met and became engaged to Ellen Louise Axson, and they were married
in 1885.
They would have three daughters over the next few years.
After his PhD, Wilson took a teaching position at the brand new Bryn Mawr College for women,
though at the time he was personally disdainful of female scholars.
He next became a professor at my Alma Mater, Wesleyan University, and I actually lived
in the house on 200 High Street there where he once lived.
During this time, he was extremely productive in writing articles and books, writing over
two dozen articles for the Atlantic and publishing 9 books, the first of which came out in 1885
and was called “Congressional Government”.
Wilson grew more and more interested in government administration and his writings argued for
remodeling the government more like a British parliamentary system, fusing the executive
and legislative branches.
He questioned the basic principles of the American government, feeling that the power
and prestige of the president had declined over time, and that the legislative branch
now had all the power.
A major milestone in his life came when he was hired to teach political economy at Princeton in 1890.
Princeton at that time did not have the reputation for excellence it enjoys today, and was more
of a playground for the wealthy.
Wilson wanted to reform it and make it into a modern research university.
He outlined a program for liberal arts that would combine the study of sciences with humanities.
He reorganized the academic structure along German lines, and his transformative work
was a big success, turning Princeton into a serious academic institution.
In 1902, he became President of the university.
Now, not everything he did worked as well as his academic changes, certainly his attempts
to democratize Princeton went far less well, and in 1906 he came into open conflict with
alumni when he wanted to eliminate socially exclusive clubs and residences.
There were also big racial issues there; Princeton, though in New Jersey, was known as
“the northernmost southern school”.
At one point, the Princeton football team all left the dining hall in protest when Harvard’s,
with one black player, entered.
Wilson did actively discourage black people from applying for admission, but his rationale
was to keep peace among white students and alumni.
This era, immediately following the Spanish-American War of 1898, is often seen as the era of American
Imperialism, right?
Wilson was not an imperialist.
He believed that America’s role for its colonies was to help them take care of themselves,
and as the first decade of the 20th century rolled on, his opinions began to really matter.
Princeton had made him visible on the political scene, and his compelling skills as a lecturer
had led to people seeing him as a possible candidate for office.
In fact, following a speech at a New York club in 1906, people began suggesting him
as a Democratic candidate for president.
But remember, at this time only one Democrat, Grover Cleveland, had been president since
before the Civil War and that had begun nearly 50 years ago.
In 1910, the Democratic Committee of New Jersey asked Wilson to run for Governor of the state.
He accepted but insisted on a free hand in policy issues.
The party leaders had imagined that he would be their tool; he was anything but that, and
even on the campaign trail, disavowed parts of the party’s platform.
He came out as thoroughly progressive and won the election by a landslide.
New Jersey at that time was fairly corrupt, though.
The law allowed corporations to own stock in other corporations, and they created trusts
between railroads and other businesses, and they wielded enormous political power.
Wilson immediately took on the state’s political machine and initiated reforms of political parties.
He introduced standards for financial disclosure and outlawed
corporate contributions to political campaigns.
He reformed the public utilities, provided for workman’s compensation, and passed a
corrupt practices act.
In fact, when he became governor he was pretty
much immediately seen as Presidential material with a progressive agenda.
Saying that leads me to say a few words about progressivism.
This was a movement at this time across party lines that believed the federal government
needed a larger role in issues that were too big for the individual or that crossed states
lines, like railroads and interstate commerce.
It was a response to the excesses of the Gilded Age Robber Barons, and there was a widespread
belief that the current economic and social conditions called for a re-thinking of the
constitution and the state itself.
There was a growing awareness of the women’s and labor movements, and acts like the Food
and Drug Act and the Federal Reserve Act were progressive actions.
Wilson had firm ideas about government and business.
“...Government must regulate business because that is the foundation of every other relationship.”
So...
1912.
The Democratic Convention that year was the first one to use primaries to select the candidate.
That candidate was Woodrow Wilson and the Presidential election was a multi-candidate
race, with Wilson coming out on top of Roosevelt, current President Taft, and Eugene Debs.
The public had been swayed, according to Franklin Roosevelt, by Wilson’s “profound social
and moral convictions”, but it wasn’t an easy election despite divided opposition.
Wilson and Roosevelt’s platforms were pretty similar, actually.
But Wilson won and became the first southerner to be President since 1848.
He brought in Edward House as a full-time unpaid political advisor, who was completely
trusted and accountable to nobody and major political player William Jennings Bryan - an
isolationist - became Secretary of State.
Wilson himself wasn’t interested in foreign policy and once said, “It would be the irony
of my fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs”.
The major reforms of his presidency were instituting the federal income tax, establishing the Federal
Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission, the National Park Service Act, and the 8-hour
work day, but of course he’s remembered now as being the President during the war.
On August 4th, 1914, just days after the war broke out, America declared its neutrality,
and two days later, First Lady Ellen Wilson died of Bright’s disease.
Woodrow would later marry Edith Galt in December 1915.
Now, we’ve covered both Wilson and the situation in America during the war in our America special,
so I won’t go into it here, but neutrality became more and more difficult to maintain,
and indeed in January 1916 the preparedness campaign opened paramilitary training camps
in the US, and the war was the main theme of the 1916 election.
By this time, Robert Lansing was Secretary of State, and knowing of Wilson’s disdain
for him, he used the State Department to undermine Wilson’s neutrality stance.
Wilson did say, though, that if re-election depended on him getting the country into the
war, then he didn’t want it.
The incredibly close race between Wilson and Republican Charles Evans Hughes came down
to 4,000 votes in California that gave Wilson a second term.
The Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, said, “no campaign in the history of this
country has been so marked by viciousness, bitterness, and invective”.
Peace proposals, the Zimmerman telegram, the Yarrowdale affair, and unrestricted submarine
warfare - all of which we did cover in regular episodes - and all of which brought the US
down the path to war soon followed, and once war was declared there were big issues even
getting the country behind the war.
And the war continued, and the war ended.
Wilson had famously issued his 14 points, which got a lukewarm reaction in Europe; French
Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau said, “God was satisfied with Ten Commandments, Wilson
gives us 14”.
At the Versailles Conference in 1919, the League of Nations was formed.
Wilson’s efforts to establish and promote it earned him the Nobel Peace Prize that year,
but the United States did not join the League - that all will also be covered on this channel
when we reach the end of the war and even though Wilson was important for the post war
order, he was by far not the only player.
Anyhow, post war and post Presidency, Woodrow Wilson did not live very long; he died February 3rd, 1924.
His legacy as President and especially as a progressive is pretty strong, but what of
his racial legacy?
Several historians have pointed out fairly consistent examples of Wilson’s racist policies
and political appointments, and some say that Wilson’s opposition to slavery was on economic,
not moral grounds, though I can’t confirm or deny that myself.
As President, his War Department drafted black men and paid them the same as whites, sure,
but organized them into segregated units with white commanders.
Wilson told those who complained, “segregation is not a humiliation, but a benefit, and ought
to be so regarded by you gentlemen.
Civil Rights activist W.E.B.
DuBois had campaigned for Wilson in 1912, but by 1916 opposed him, charging that his
first term was “the worst attempt at Jim Crow legislation and discrimination in civil
service that blacks had experienced since the Civil War.”
But was he a great statesman and visionary who made the world safe for democracy in spite
of all that?
That’s such a loaded question that just trying to answer it would make a whole special
episode of its own.
I’m very curious what your thoughts are about one of the most controversial figures
from that whole era of American history.
Please keep it civil.
We want to thank Madeleine Johnson for the research on this episode.
If you like to learn more about the US before joining World War 1, check out our special
episode right here.
If you want to learn more about that era in the US, you can also follow us on Facebook
and Instagram.
See you next time.