Woodrow
Wilson served two full terms as president, from 1913 to
1921, and although he is best remembered for the role that
he played in constructing the Treaty of Versailles, Wilson
was first and foremost a dynamic politician with progressive
ideas about domestic policy, liberal internationalism, and
the role of the president in American public life.
Born on December 28, 1856, in Staunton, Virginia, Wilson
graduated from Princeton University in 1879, and then from
the University of Virginia Law School in 1880. Six years
later, he was awarded a doctorate in political science from
Johns Hopkins University, shortly after publishing his first
book about some of the problems confronting modern democracy.
In 1890, Wilson returned to Princeton as a member of its
political science faculty, and served as president of that
institution from 1902 to 1910. Abandoning academia for political
life that same year, Wilson ran for the governorship of
New Jersey – and won – yet he remained leery
of the narrow interests inherent in state politics and kept
his eye on the White House.
In 1912, Wilson won the Democratic nomination for president
and coasted to victory in the general election on the back
of a bitterly divided GOP. Almost immediately, the new president
began governing the way he thought a president should govern:
through use of the bully pulpit, by enforcing greater discipline
on Capitol Hill, and by skillfully using the media to insure
that the White House – and not the Congress –
was responsible for setting the national agenda. Wilson
used these tactics, among others, to secure passage of many
of his "New Freedom" proposals, including tariff reform,
the creation of the Federal Reserve system and the Federal
Trade Commission, the abolishment of child labor, the enactment
of the eight-hour workday, and the imposition of a modest
income tax.
Regardless of Wilson's principled goals with respect to domestic affairs, it would be his
administration's foreign policy that commanded the most attention. His efforts to maintain the
"Open Door" in China and to improve relations with Latin America were favorably received, but
soon became overshadowed by an unfortunate intervention in Mexico and then ultimately by war
in Europe.
Wilson's initial reaction to the outbreak of World
War I in August 1914 was to secure domestic support
for official American neutrality, pleading with American
citizens to be "impartial in thought as well as in action."
Neutrality, however, became less palatable to Americans
as the war progressed. In 1915, German U-boats sank the
ocean-liner Lusitania, killing 128 Americans, and
in 1916 it was exposed that Germany had invited Mexico to
join it in an alliance against the United States. When Germany
announced that it would resume unrestricted submarine warfare
in January 1917, President Wilson felt the appropriate time
had come for America to weigh in on the side of the Allies.
Despite having campaigned on a peace platform in 1916, Wilson
asked the Congress for a declaration of war and they obliged
him.
Less than a year after having committed American troops
to the First World War, however, Wilson's thoughts began
to turn to the postwar order, and he enunciated his views
on this topic in the famous Fourteen Points Address of January
1918. Wilson laid out his vision for a cleaner, more open,
and ultimately more peaceful international system in this
speech, and with Germany's collapse in November, Wilson
eagerly steamed to France to insure that his program found
inclusion in the instrument of peace to be drafted at Versailles.
Despite a raucous welcome on the continent, however, Wilson
was unable to override the desire of Britain, France, and
Italy to punish Germany, and he was compelled to surrender
thirteen of his points in exchange for realization of the
one that he held most dear – the League
of Nations.
Wilson's small victory, however, was overshadowed by his
inability to persuade the United States Senate to ratify
the Treaty of Versailles, and hence to join the league.
Wilson had submitted the treaty to the Senate in July of
1919, and the question of its ratification quickly evolved
into a war of personalities between the president and his
archnemesis, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts.
Wilson staked all his personal prestige on the Senate's
acceptance of the treaty, and when the Senate twice rejected
the Versailles agreement, it became clear that President
Wilson had lost the influence in Congress that had marked
the beginning of his administration. Disabled by a series
of strokes and confined to the White House for medical reasons,
the energy of the early Wilson years had clearly gone. Nonetheless,
Wilson remained mentally and physically acute enough to
muster a controversial decision when he felt it necessary,
as when he vetoed the Volstead Act that sought to enforce
national prohibition of alcohol.
Wilson left the White House on March 4, 1921, and lived for another three
years in
Washington, D.C., until his death on February 3, 1924.
Wilson had a great influence on both Roosevelts. FDR served
as his assistant secretary of the navy and carefully observed
the harsh lessons Wilson's campaign for the League of Nations
exacted on his presidency. ER embraced Wilson's commitment
to progressive reform, his passionate commitment to the
League of Nations and closely observed the scathing treatment
Edith Wilson received from the press when the first lady
did not conceal her influence within the administration.
Sources:
American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 604-612.
Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1964, 352-368.
Graff, Henry F., ed. The Presidents: A Reference History. 2nd ed. New York: Simon and
Schuster Macmillan, 1996, 365-387.