Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) served as the 28th President of the U S from 1913 to 1921. Born in Staunton, Virginia, he spent his early years in Augusta, Georgia and Columbia, South Carolina. Wilson earned a PhD in political science at Johns Hopkins University, and served as a professor and scholar at various institutions before being chosen as President of Princeton University, a position he held from 1902 to 1910. In the election of 1910, he was the gubernatorial candidate of New Jersey's Democratic Party, and was elected the 34th Governor of New Jersey, serving from 1911 to 1913.

Running for president in 1912, Wilson benefited from a split in the Republican Party, which enabled his plurality of just over forty percent to win him a large Electoral College margin. He was the first Southerner elected as president since 1848, and Wilson was a leading force in the Progressive Movement, bolstered by his Democratic Party's winning control of both the White House and Congress in 1912.

Wilson reintroduced the spoken State of the Union, which had been out of use since 1801. Leading the Congress, now in Democratic hands, he oversaw the passage of progressive legislative policies unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. Through passage of the Adamson Act, imposing an 8-hour workday for railroads, he averted a railroad strike and an ensuing economic crisis. Upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Wilson maintained a policy of neutrality, while pursuing a more aggressive policy in dealing with Mexico's civil war.

Wilson was admired as a writer, a scholar, and an educator more than two decades before he became the 28th president of United States of America. He spent twenty-four years working in the academic world as a professor, then as a college president, before he was elected governor of New Jersey. Wilson’s idealistic internationalism “Wilsonianism” which calls the United States to enter in the world to fight for democracy has been a contentious position in American foreign policy.

Woodrow Wilson was an admirable principled president. He got congress to lower the tariff and he reformed the national banking system. He also got the congress to declare that it wasn’t against the law for working men to go on strike. When world war one started his aim was clearly to stay out of it, he instead looked forward to help the warring countries to make peace.

Wilson faced former Governor Charles Evans Hughes of New York State in the presidential election of 1916. He became the first Democrat since Andrew Jackson elected to consecutive terms with a narrow majority. Wilson's second term was dominated by American entry into World War I.

In April 1917, when Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, Wilson asked Congress to declare war in order to make "the world safe for democracy." The United States conducted military operations alongside the Allies, although without a formal alliance. Also in 1917, he denied sanctuary to Tsarist Russia's Nicholas II and his immediate family when Nicholas was overthrown in that year's February Revolution and forced into abdication that March, a decision that became controversial the following year with the shooting of the Romanov family in 1918. During the war, Wilson focused on diplomacy and financial considerations, leaving military strategy to the generals, especially General John J. Pershing. Loaning billions of dollars to Britain, France, and other Allies, the United States aided their finance of the war effort. Through the Selective Service Act, conscription sent 10,000 freshly trained soldiers to France, per day, by summer of 1918. On the home front, he raised income taxes, borrowing billions of dollars through the public's purchase of Liberty Bonds. He set up the War Industries Board, promoted labor union cooperation, regulating agriculture and food production through the Lever Act.

The crackdown was intensified by his Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to include expulsion of non-citizen radicals during the First Red Scare of 1919–1920. Following years of advocacy for suffrage on the state level, in 1918 he endorsed the Nineteenth Amendment whose ratification provided all women the right to vote by its ratification in 1920, over Southern opposition. Wilson staffed his government with Southern Democrats who believed in segregation. He gave department heads greater autonomy in their management. Early in 1918, he issued his principles for peace, the Fourteen Points, and in 1919, following armistice, he traveled to Paris, promoting the formation of a League of Nations, concluding the Treaty of Versailles. Following his return from Europe, Wilson embarked on a nationwide tour in 1919 to campaign for the treaty, suffering a severe stroke. The treaty was met with serious concern by Senate Republicans, and Wilson rejected a compromise effort led by Henry Cabot Lodge, leading to the Senate's rejection of the treaty. Due to his stroke, Wilson secluded himself in the White House, disability having diminished his power and influence.

Wilson was admired as a writer, a scholar, and an educator more than two decades before he became the 28th president of United States of America. He spent twenty-four years working in the academic world as a professor, then as a college president, before he was elected governor of New Jersey. Wilson’s idealistic internationalism “Wilsonianism” which calls the United States to enter in the world to fight for democracy has been a contentious position in American foreign policy.

Woodrow Wilson was an admirable principled president. He got congress to lower the tariff and he reformed the national banking system. He also got the congress to declare that it wasn’t against the law for working men to go on strike. When world war one started his aim was clearly to stay out of it, he instead looked forward to help the warring countries to make peace. When German submarines bombed American ships in the Atlantic without warning, the USA was engaged in the war. More than anything else Wilson wanted this to be a war to end all the wars. Even at the time of fighting, he drew up his famous 14 Point Peace plan. The most important of these called for a League of Nations which would settle future rifts between nations. Germany had surrendered and the League of Nations was formed. But without the approval of the U.S senate America couldn’t join and without the USA the body was rendered useless. But Wilson kept traveling around the country making speeches in favor of the league. He left a legacy for peace which people still dream about.

Thomas Woodrow, the leader of the Democratic Party, was the 28th President of the United States. Before his presidency, he was the President of Princeton University and the Governor of New Jersey. He won the control of Congress and White House in 1912 and started the Progressive Movement. He promulgated progressive legislative agenda which was used till the 1933 New Deal. His legislative agenda included Federal Trade Commission Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act, Federal Reserve Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act. Child labor was first restricted by his Keating–Owen Act in United nation. He maintained neutral policy during the outbreak of World War. In 1916, with the slogan, “He kept us out of war”, he was re-elected and declared war against submarine warfare by Nazi Germany.

Woodrow Wilson utilized a progressive vision in order to reform American institutions and bring American society into the 20th century. Wilson had a prolific career before he attained the presidency, as attained a Ph.D. became the president of Princeton University, and held the position of Governor of New Jersey. When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, Wilson was hesitant to get involved, but he finally asked Congress for permission to enter the war in 1917 in order to ensure “the world [is] safe for democracy.” In this way, Wilson was committed to defending American democracy and its values both at home and abroad.

On February 3, 1924, Wilson died at home of a stroke and other heart-related problems at age 67. He was interred in a sarcophagus in Washington National Cathedral and is the only president interred in the nation's capital.