Scholarly Woodrow Wilson, the twenty-eighth President of the United States, was a slender man of medium height. He had a prominent jaw, a sizable forehead, pursed lips, and always wore thin rimmed glasses. With a dignified air which commanded respect rather than adulation, Woodrow Wilson was an idealist, an uncompromising purist who had little patience for those who did not share his vision. Wilson disliked social gatherings enough not to hold an inaugural ball, but it was not because he disliked or was afraid of people. During his inauguration, crowd control police had cleared a large space in front of the podium where Wilson was to deliver his inaugural address. Before speaking, Wilson told the police: "Let the people come forward." The statement, which was quoted extensively in the popular press, summed up the philosophy of his administration. President Wilson's first term was responsible for a great number of reform measures, including the Federal Reserve Act, the establishment of the Federal Trade Commission, the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, and the Adamson Act. In his second term President Wilson proved himself as effective a war leader as he had been during peacetime. Ironically, however, it was in organizing peace, efforts which later earned him the Noble Peace Prize, that he fell short. It was President Wilson who had declared World War I into a war for democracy, and he honestly believed that it was. His naiveté blinded him to the anterior motives of territorial gains of the other Allied forces. Throughout his career, his preoccupation with the bigger picture often caused him to miss the finer details-- nowhere was this more disastrous than during the Versailles Peace Conference. Intent on creating his League of Nations, Wilson made many concessions to the other nations which resulted in a harsh peace for Germany. The unfair Treaty of Versailles paved the way for Hitler's rise to power in Germany and thought by some to be directly responsible for World War II. In the end, President Wilson's inability to compromise his high ideals kept the United States out of his League of Nations. His faith in democracy still unshaken, he submitted the treaty directly to the people after the Senate voted it down. The victory of Warren G. Harding in the 1920 election ended Wilson's struggle for United States' entry into the League of Nations.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born December 28, 1856 in Stauton, Virginia. He was the third child of four born to Janet and Joseph Wilson, a Presbyterian minister. When Woodrow was two, his family moved from his birthplace in Virginia to Augusta, Georgia where his father became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. Because of the Civil War, Woodrow did not attend formal school until the age of nine. Joseph Wilson sympathized strongly with the South and converted his church into a hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers. During the war, Woodrow's father provided him with an informal, though thorough, education. Historians believe Woodrow Wilson may have been dyslexic in his youth, but outgrew this learning disability by the time he reached his early teens. In 1870, the Wilsons moved to Columbia, South Carolina where Joseph Wilson had secured a teaching position in a seminary. Upon enrolling at Davidson College near Charlotte, North Carolina in 1873, Woodrow legally dropped his first name. Illness forced Woodrow to drop out of school without completing his first year, and he moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, where his family now lived. In 1875 Woodrow Wilson entered the College of New Jersey, (later known as Princeton University). He graduated four years later a strong debater with an interest in government and a desire to enter the ministry like his father. Wilson studied law at the University of Virginia, but dropped out because of illness in 1880. He pursued his degree by way of independent study and passed the bar in 1882. With a friend from law school, Wilson established a practice, but soon developed a distaste for trying cases and quit. In 1883 he enrolled in the graduate program at John Hopkins University where he studied history and government. His dissertation, Congressional Government, was published in 1885. The book, arguing that Congress was the dominant power in the United States government and that it should pattern itself after the British Parliament, earned him critical praise and a position as associate professor of history at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. He received his doctorate in 1886.
Woodrow Wilson married Ellen Louise Axson, also the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, on June 24, 1885. The couple had three daughters, two of which where married while their father was President. Ellen Wilson died after a long illness in the White House on August 6, 1914. The job of White House Hostess was filled by Wilson's unmarried daughter, Margaret, his cousin Helen Woodrow Bones, and later by his second wife Edith Wilson.
Woodrow Wilson moved to Middletown Connecticut in 1888 where he accepted a position teaching history and political science at Weslyan University. In 1890 he left Weslyan for a similar position at Princeton. The Princeton board of trustees unanimously elected him president of the University in 1902. As president of Princeton, Wilson restructured the curriculum to allow for numerous new subjects. He reorganized social groups on campus into academic discussion groups closely supervised by professors. His plan to restructure the layout of the campus dormitories into quadrangles, a move which he hoped would benefit the students by making academics the primary focus in their life at Princeton rather than sporting or social events, was opposed and ultimately rejected by the board.
Word of Wilson's reputation as a champion of reform in education reached the leaders of the Democratic Party in New Jersey. The Democrats in New Jersey were weak in 1910, and party leaders James Smith Jr. and Colonel George B.M. Harvey saw in Wilson an opportunity to win the governor's office. Disheartened by the rejection of his plan to restructure campus life at Princeton, Wilson accepted the Democratic nomination for governor of New Jersey in 1910. The Democrats had expected to be able to control Wilson easily because of his political inexperience, but Wilson declared that, should he win, he would not bow to party pressure. Wilson easily won the election and immediately set to the task of reforming government in New Jersey. He passed laws which attacked big business by requiring employers to pay workers compensation for on-the-job injury and other laws designed to break up monopolies. He increased the state government's ability to regulate utilities and greatly improved the New Jersey public school system. Governor Wilson's reputation for success in New Jersey followed him to the 1912 Democratic National Convention in Baltimore where, with the support of William Jennings Bryan, he beat out Speaker of the House Champ Clark for the nomination. Former President Roosevelt's third party candidacy split the Republican vote that year, ensuring a Democratic victory. Wilson won the election with 435 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 88 and to President Taft's 8. Woodrow Wilson became the twenty-eighth President of the United States on March 4, 1913.
The first bill signed into law during the Wilson Administration was the Underwood Tariff Act which became law in 1913. The law, dramatically lowering tariff rates, was a fulfillment of a campaign promise Wilson had made in 1912. The Wilson Administration was the first to make use of the Sixteenth Amendment in levying an income tax. In 1913 the Federal Reserve Act, regulating currency and the banking industry, became law. The Federal Trade Commission was established in 1914 to ensure fair business practices. The Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 expanded the powers of the federal government in breaking down monopolies. And the Adamson Act of 1916 established an eight-hour day for railroad workers.
When World War I broke out in 1914, President Wilson declared neutrality. In May of 1915, a German submarine sunk the British passenger liner Lusitania, killing 100 Americans. President Wilson demanded, and received, an apology from the German government and a promise that they would cease sinking passenger ships of any nationality.
President Woodrow Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt, the widow of a wealthy Washington jeweler, on December 18, 1915. After the President's stroke in September of 1919, Edith protected her husband by restricting his contact with outsiders. Historians widely believe that Edith Wilson may have been responsible for many of the Presidential decisions during the end of Wilson's term.
President Wilson easily won the Democratic nomination for re-election in 1916. The Republicans nominated Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes. Former President Roosevelt declined to run that year and threw his support behind the Republican nominee. President Wilson campaigned with the slogan "He kept us out of war." He beat Hughes in the election by a slim margin and by 277-254 in the electoral college, which was the closest presidential victory to date.
President Wilson tried to mediate peace between the warring nations of World War I. On January 22, 1917, he delivered a speech calling for a "peace without victory" in Europe and the establishment of a League of Nations to ensure that peace. Within a week of his speech, the German government announced its plans to continue to return to unrestricted submarine warfare. President Wilson sent diplomats over to Germany on February 3, in an attempt to persuade the Germans against this decision. Diplomacy was abandoned, and on April 2, 1917, President Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war, which was overwhelmingly granted on April 6, 1917.
The powers of the President in the war effort were virtually unlimited, and Congress quickly passed almost everything President Wilson requested. A Selective Service Act was passed almost immediately after the declaration. The President legislated to have the federal government seize control of the national railroads. To oversee the economy, a War Industries Board was established.
With an Allied victory in sight, President Wilson delivered his famous "14 Points" speech on January 8, 1918. In his speech, the President called for the removal of all barriers of trade between nations, a world-wide arms reduction, and an outlawing of secret treaties. The "14 Point" also provided for a League of Nations to settle disputes between nations and to enforce international law. More than half of the "14 Points" dealt specifically with post-war plans for Germany, the speech was instrumental in convincing the hurting Germany to surrender. An Allied armistice was reached with Germany on November 11, 1918.
The Versailles Peace Conference took place in Paris in December of 1918. President Wilson was received at the conference as a hero. Though he was able to dominate the talks, he had to make many concessions, most of which provided for a harsh dealing of the concurred Germany in order to get his League of Nations into the Treaty. The Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of its colonies, rearranged its boundaries which resulted in the loss of territory, made it responsible for paying exorbitant reparations, and saddled the entire blame for the conflict on Germany. The Treaty of Versailles was instrumental in clearing a path for the rise of Hitler.
The Treaty of Versailles was submitted by President Wilson to the Senate on July 10, 1919. Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge distrusted the League of Nations and sought to protect the United States by adding a provision which President Wilson felt nullified the League. The President took his case directly to the American people and departed on a speaking tour around the country. On September 26, 1919 President Wilson fell ill while speaking in Pueblo, Colorado. He returned to Washington, where he suffered a stroke on October 2, 1919 which left him incapacitated. The Treaty of Versailles was voted down by the Senate on November 19, 1919. In March of 1920, the Republican opposition, led by Senator Lodge, re-introduced the Treaty in the hopes that President Wilson would compromise so that the Treaty could be ratified with the Lodge provision. President Wilson again refused to compromise and again submitted the Treaty to the American people, this time with the election of 1920. Too ill to run himself, President Wilson supported the Democratic nomination of James M. Cox. The Republicans nominated Warren G. Harding. Harding beat Cox in a landslide election, and President Wilson's dream of United States membership within his League of Nations ceased to be.
Woodrow Wilson retired to his home on S Street in Washington D.C. He became a recluse during the final years of his life. Woodrow Wilson suffered another stroke and died on February 3, 1924.
