Wilson, Woodrow Essay, Research Paper

Wilson, Woodrow

Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States ( 1913-21 ) , secured a

legislative plan of progressive domestic reform, guided his state

during WORLD WAR I, and sought a peace colony based on high moral

rules, to be guaranteed by the LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Early Life and Career

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Va. , on Dec. 28, 1856. He was

deeply influenced by a piously spiritual family headed by his

male parent, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, a Presbyterian curate, and his female parent,

Janet Woodrow Wilson, the girl of a curate. Woodrow ( he dropped the

Thomas in 1879 ) attended ( 1873-74 ) Davidson College and in 1875 entered the

College of New Jersey ( subsequently Princeton University ) , graduating in 1879.

Wilson studied ( 1879-80 ) at the University of Virginia Law School, briefly

adept jurisprudence in Atlanta, and in 1883 entered The Johns Hopkins University

for alumnus survey in political scientific discipline. His widely acclaimed book,

Congressional Government ( 1885 ) , was published a twelvemonth before he received

the doctorial grade. In 1885 he married Ellen Louise Axson ; they had three

girls.

Wilson taught at Bryn Mawr College ( 1885-88 ) and Wesleyan University

in Connecticut ( 1888-90 ) before he was called ( 1890 ) to Princeton as

professor of law and political economic system. A popular lector,

Wilson besides wrote a mark of articles and nine books, including Division

and Reunion ( 1893 ) and his five-volume History of the American Peoples

( 1902 ) . In 1902 he was the consentaneous pick of the legal guardians to go

Princeton & # 8217 ; s president. His reforms included reorganisation of the

departmental construction, alteration of the course of study, raising of academic

criterions, tightening of pupil subject, and the still-famous

preceptorial system of direction. But Wilson & # 8217 ; s quad program & # 8211 ; an effort to

create colleges or quadrilaterals where pupils and module members would

unrecorded and analyze together & # 8211 ; was defeated. Opposed by affluent alumnas and

legal guardians, he besides lost his conflict for control of the proposed alumnus

college.

The Princeton contentions, seen nationally as a conflict between

democracy and vested wealth, propelled Wilson into the political sphere.

George Harvey, editor of Harper & # 8217 ; s Weekly, with aid from New Jersey & # 8217 ; s

Democratic party foremans, persuaded Wilson to run for governor in 1910.

After hiting an easy triumph, he cast off his machine patrons and

launched a singular plan of progressive statute law, including a

direct-primary jurisprudence, antimonopoly Torahs, a corrupt-practices act, a workingman & # 8217 ; s

compensation act, and measures set uping a public public-service corporation committee and

allowing metropoliss to follow the committee signifier of authorities.

Success in New Jersey made him a rival for the Democratic

presidential nomination. Although Wilson entered the 1912 Democratic

National Convention a hapless second to Speaker of the House Champ Clark, his

strength increased as Clark & # 8217 ; s faded, and he won the nomination after 46

ballots. Offering a plan of reform that he called the New Freedom,

Wilson ran against a divided Republican party. In November, with merely 42

per centum of the popular ballot, he won 435 electoral ballots to 88 for

Progressive campaigner Theodore Roosevelt and 8 for the Republican

campaigner, President William Howard Taft.

Progressive as President

By showing his plan personally before the Democratically

controlled Congress, using personal persuasion every bit good as backing,

and appealing to the American populace with his stirring rhetoric, Wilson won

transition of an impressive array of progressive steps. The Underbrush

Duty Act ( 1913 ) , the first decrease in responsibilities since the Civil War, besides

established a modest income revenue enhancement. The Federal Reserve Act ( 1913 ) provided

for currency and banking reform. Antimonopoly statute law followed in 1914,

when Congress passed the Federal Trade Commission Act and the CLAYTON

ANTI-TRUST ACT. In 1915, Wilson supported the La Follette Seamen & # 8217 ; s measure,

designed to better the on the job conditions of crewmans. The undermentioned twelvemonth

he signed the Federal Farm Loan Act, supplying low-interest recognition to

husbandmans ; the Adamson Act, allowing an 8-hour twenty-four hours to interstate railway

workers ; and the Child Labor Act, which limited kids & # 8217 ; s working hours.

In foreign policy, Wilson was faced with greater jobs than any

president since Abraham Lincoln. He attempted to stop U.S. dollar diplomatic negotiations

and advance the mediation of differences. He rejected a loan to China on the

evidences that it impaired Chinese sovereignty, and he helped queer Nipponese

designs on the Chinese mainland. He approved Secretary of State William

Jennings BRYAN & # 8217 ; s attempts to minimise the danger of war through a series of

& # 8220 ; conciliation pacts & # 8221 ; and joined him in an unsuccessful effort to

negociate a Pan-American treaty vouching the unity of the Western

Hemisphere. In trying to cover with radical Mexico, Wilson foremost

sought to advance self-government by declining to acknowledge the armed forces

usurper Victoriano HUERTA and coercing him to let free elections. When

Huerta resisted, Wilson tried to coerce him out by telling ( April 1914 )

limited American intercession at Veracruz and by back uping

constitutionalist Venustiano CARRANZA. Mediation by Argentina, Brazil, and

Chile helped to forestall a general struggle and led to Huerta & # 8217 ; s surrender

in July 1914.

A twelvemonth subsequently, Wilson recognized Carranza & # 8217 ; s probationary authorities, and

in 1916 he intervened once more after Carranza & # 8217 ; s rival, guerrilla leader Pancho

VILLA, had raided a town in New Mexico, killing several Americans. In 1915

and 1916 he reluctantly sent military personnels to Haiti and Santo Domingo to set up

U.S. associated states.

After the eruption of the European war in August 1914, Wilson

struggled with considerable success to carry through the duties of

neutrality, to maintain trade channels open, and to forestall any condensation of

U.S. rights, all in the face of the British encirclement of Germany and the

latter & # 8217 ; s debut of pigboat warfare. He warned Germany in February

1915 that it would be held to & # 8220 ; rigorous answerability & # 8221 ; for the loss of

American lives in the sinking of impersonal or rider ships. After the

LUSITANIA was sunk in May 1915 ( with the loss of 128 Americans ) , he

negotiated with such soundness that Secretary Bryan, fearing a declaration

of war, resigned in protest. In September 1915, Wilson won pledges from

Germany to supply for the safety of riders caught in pigboat

onslaughts, and in May 1916 the Germans agreed to abandon unrestricted

pigboat warfare.

Runing on his record of reform and with the motto & # 8220 ; He k

ept us out of

the war, & # 8221 ; Wilson sought reelection in 1916 against Republican Charles Evans

Hughes. The president won a narrow triumph, having 277 out of 531

electoral ballots.

Wartime Leader

When Germany renewed full-scale pigboat warfare in 1917, Wilson severed

diplomatic dealingss. In April he asked Congress for a declaration of war,

asseverating that & # 8220 ; the universe must be made safe for democracy. & # 8221 ;

As war president, Wilson made a major part to the modern

presidential term as he led Americans in a dramatic mobilisation of the

state & # 8217 ; s resources. Establishing a series of war bureaus, he extended

federal control over industry, transit, labour, nutrient, fuel, and

monetary values. In May 1917 he forced through Congress a Selective Service measure

under which 2.8 million work forces were drafted by war & # 8217 ; s terminal. He sought and

received legislative deputation of increased powers, therefore go forthing for his

replacements the case in points and tools to run into future crises.

Wilson the Peacemaker

From 1914, Wilson had sought ways to intercede the struggle. In 1915 and

1916 he sent his adviser and intimate, Col. Edward M. HOUSE, to Europe to

work toward a negotiated peace and postwar cooperation. In the spring of

1916, Wilson joined the call for a postwar association of states ; on Jan.

22, 1917, he called for a peace without triumph and reaffirmed his support

for a conference of states.

With the United States in the war, Wilson hoped to hold a stronger

influence on the peace colony. On Jan. 8, 1918, he presented his

FOURTEEN POINTS, a comprehensive statement of war purposes. It became at one time a

war arm and a peace plan, animating the peoples of the Allied powers

while sabotaging the assurance of the Germans. Germany made its peace

overture in the hope of obtaining merely intervention under Wilson & # 8217 ; s proposals.

Wilson headed the American deputation to the PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE.

He erred earnestly, nevertheless, by non developing bipartizan support for his

peace programs ; he did non name a outstanding Republican to the deputation,

and he called on electors to return a Democratic Congress in 1918 as a ballot

of assurance. Most competitions were decided on local issues, and when

Republicans captured both houses of Congress, his leading seemed

repudiated.

Wilson was hailed as a hero upon his reaching in Europe. At the

conference ( January-June 1919 ) Allied leaders Georges CLEMENCEAU, David

LLOYD GEORGE, and Vittorio ORLANDO favored a traditional colony. Wilson

worked indefatigably for a peace along the lines of his Fourteen Points ; merely

his shrewd bargaining prevented even harsher footings from being imposed on

Germany. Wilson characterized the Versailles Treaty as the best gettable

via media and set his hopes in the League of Nations, an built-in portion of

the pact, as the establishment through which unfairnesss could be subsequently

rectified.

Senate Republicans, led by Henry Cabot Lodge, refused to O.K. the

peace pact without important alterations of the U.S. committedness to

the League. Wilson accepted some via media but so turned to the people.

In a national speech production circuit he articulately defended the League and U.S.

rank as indispensable to permanent universe peace. Long months of wash uping

labour had weakened the president, nevertheless, and he collapsed on Sept. 25,

1919, following a address in Pueblo, Colo.

A hebdomad subsequently Wilson suffered a shot that left him partly

incapacitated for the balance of his life. From his bed he continued to

oppose terrible limitations to the League. The Senate, meanwhile, rejected

the pact in November 1919 and March 1920. Wilson urged that the 1920

presidential election be a referendum on the League. Republican Warren G.

Harding, who had established a repute as an opposition of the League, won

in a landslide.

In December 1920, Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for 1919. The

former president and his 2nd married woman, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, whom he

married in 1915, after the decease of his first married woman, continued to do their

place in Washington, D.C. Wilson died there on Feb. 3, 1924.

Bibliography:

Baker, Ray S. , Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, 8 vols. ( 1927-39 ; repr. 1968 ) ;

Bell, Herbert C. F. , Woodrow Wilson and the People ( 1945 ) ;

Blum, John M. , Woodrow Wilson and the Politicss of Morality ( 1956 ) ;

Bragdon, Henry W. , Woodrow Wilson: The Academic Years ( 1967 ) ;

Cooper, John M. , The Warrior and the Priest ( 1983 ) ;

Ferrell, Robert H. , Woodrow Wilson and World War I: Nineteen Seventeen to

Nineteen Twenty-one ( 1986 ) ;

Heckscher, August, Woodrow Wilson ( 1991 ) ;

Latham, Earl, ed. , The Philosophy and Policies of Woodrow Wilson ( 1975 ) ;

Levin, N. Gordon, Woodrow Wilson and World Politics ( 1968 ) ;

Link, Arthur S. , Wilson, 5 vols. ( 1947-65 ) , Woodrow Wilson: A Brief

Biography ( 1963 ) , and Woodrow Wilson and a Revolutionary World,

1913-1921 ( 1982 ) ;

Hirst, David W. , et al. , eds. , The Documents of Woodrow Wilson, 55 vols. ( 1966-86 ) ;

Walworth, Arthur, Woodrow Wilson, 3d erectile dysfunction. ( 1978 ) .

Name: Woodrow Wilson 28th President of the United States ( 1913-21 ) Nickname:

& # 8220 ; Schoolmaster in Politics & # 8221 ; Born: Dec. 28, 1856, Staunton, Va. Education: College

of New Jersey ( now Princeton University ; calibrated 1879 ) Profession: Teacher,

Public Official Religious association: Presbyterian Marriage: June 24, 1885, to

Ellen Louise Axson ( 1860-1914 ) ; Dec. 18, 1915, to Edith Bolling Galt ( 1872-1961 )

Childs: Margaret Woodrow Wilson ( 1886-1944 ) ; Jessie Woodrow Wilson ( 1887-

1933 ) ; Eleanor Randolph Wilson ( 1889-1967 ) Political Affiliation: Democrat

Hagiographas: George Washington ( 1896 ) ; A History of the American People ( 5 vols. ,

1902 ) ; Constitutional Government in the United States ( 1908 ) ; Documents of Woodrow

Wilson ( 1966- ) , ed. by Arthur S. Link, et Al. Died: Feb. 3, 1924, Washington,

D.C. Buried: National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. Vice-President: Thomas R.

Marshall

Cabinet Members: ^ Secretary of State: William J. Bryan ( 1913-15 ) ; Robert Lansing

( 1915-20 ) ; Bainbridge Colby ( 1920-21 ) Secretary of the Treasury: William G.

McAdoo ( 1913-18 ) ; Carter Glass ( 1918-20 ) ; David F. Houston ( 1920-21 ) Secretary

of War: Lindley M. Garrison ( 1913-16 ) ; Newton D. Baker ( 1916-21 ) Attorney

General: James C. McReynolds ( 1913-14 ) ; Thomas W. Gregory ( 1914-19 ) ; Alexander M.

Palmer ( 1919-21 ) Postmaster General: Albert S. Burleson Secretary of the Navy:

Josephus Daniels Secretary of the Interior: Franklin K. Lane ( 1913-20 ) ; John B.

Payne ( 1920-21 ) Secretary of Agriculture: David F. Houston ( 1913-20 ) ; Edwin T.

Meredith ( 1920-21 ) Secretary of Commerce: William C. Redfield ( 1913-19 ) ; Joshua

W. Alexander ( 1919-21 ) Secretary of Labor: William B. Wilson

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