Wilson’s America

A presentation by Dr. Kevin T. Brady

Thomas Woodrow Wilson

President of Princeton

Governor of New Jersey

President of the United States

• Wilson was born in Virginia• His father was a chaplain in the Confederate

army• Wilson was an ardent Presbyterian• He came from Scotch-Irish stock

– Strong belief in predestination– Led him to view many of his options as ordained by

God– Led him to see his role in world affairs as fulfilling the

will of God.

Wilson was approached by the James “Sugar Jim” Smith of Newark, head of the New Jersey Irish Democratic political machine. Smith was to get an appointment to the U.S. Senate.

Once Wilson won, he turned his back on Smith and worked to break the power of the machine.

In 1911, Wilson openly campaigned for Smith’s Democratic opponent for Senate, James E. Martin, and defeated Smith.

The Democrats ended up losing the seat when the popular election of Senators became part of the U.S. Constitution in 1913.

Republican Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen, Sr. became New Jersey’s 1st directly elected Senator, defeating Martin in 1916

Election of 1912Teddy Roosevelt -

Progressive

Howard Taft - Republican

Woodrow Wilson - Democratic

Accomplishments of Woodrow Wilson as President

Underwood Act - lowering tariffs To compensate for the loss of revenue, he Implemented a graduated

Federal income tax 1913 - Federal Reserve Act 1914 - Antitrust legislation that established the Federal Trade Commission. 1916 - Signed law prohibiting child labor. 1916 - Limited railway workers to an eight-hour workday. 1917 - Asked U.S. Congress to declare war against Germany.

Successfully led the United States to victory in World War I. 1918 - Announced The Fourteen Points as guiding principles to the world after

World War I. His foreign allies adopted the Treaty of Versailles.

1918 - Proposed "League of Nations" but failed to convince Congress to pass the enabling legislation and thus the United States never joined the League

1920 - Women’s suffrage

Historian Walter McDougall wrote that the U. S. Constitution lasted so long because it was written by men with a great comprehension of human nature:

“They envisioned no utopias, put little trust in republican virtue, and believed the only government liable to endure was one taking mankind as it was and making allowance for passion and greed.”

Madison’s Checks and Balances, Federalism, etc.

Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand

Early 20th Century Progressive Thought

Wilson Regarding Individual Rights:

“No doubt, a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual. And a great deal that was mere vague sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as a fundamental principle.”

“Some citizens in this country have never gotten beyond the Declaration of Independence..”

Imperialist Progressivism Wilson had applauded the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines

after the Spanish-American War.

“They are children and we are men in the deep matters of government and justice.”

He denounced “. . . Anti-imperialist weeping and wailing that came out of Boston.”

Wilson idolized both Otto von Bismarck and Abraham Lincoln. Wilson believed the nation needs a strong leader– a personification of the state.

He loved Lincoln because Lincoln could impose his will on the entire nation.Lincoln centralized, modernized, and used power to build a new United States. He had:

•Suspended Habeas Corpus• Imprisoned opponents

• Instituted a Draft

Historian Walter McDougall: “If any trait bubbles up in all one reads about Wilson, it is this: he loved, craved, and in a sense glorified power.”

In his book Congressional Government ,Wilson wrote: “I CANNOT imagine power as a thing negative, not positive.”

At 29 in 1885 Wilson wanted a British-like Centralized Parliamentary System of Government. BUT

In 1908, after watching Teddy Roosevelt use the Bully Pulpit, Wilson wrote:

“The President is at liberty, both in law and in conscience, to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit and if Congress be over borne by him, it willbe no fault of he makers of the Constitution . . .

But only because the President has the nation behind him and Congress has not.”

Wilson believed that the state was a natural, organic and spiritual expression of the people themselves. Not a Newtonian machine - rather it was a Darwinian, evolving organism.

Increases in state power were evolutionary.

Wilson to John Dewey to FDR talked of governmental experimentation.“Government does now whatever experience permits or the times demand.”

Woodrow Wilson (Leaders of Men, 1890 ) on progressive leadership:

“He (the leader) supplies the power; others supply only the materials upon which the power operates. . . It is the power which dictates, dominates: the materials yield. Men are a clay in the hands of the

commutate leader.”

On the Constitution, on the campaign trail in 1912Darwin not Newton

“. . . living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and

must obey laws of Life. . . It must develop. . . all that progressives ask or desire is permission– in an era when

‘development,’ ‘evolution,’ is the scientific word—to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian

principle, all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.”

Progressive LeadersBitter Rivals

Teddy Roosevelt

• Great actor on the world stage

• The BULL Moose• Led men in battle• More Mars

– Warrior ruling class, – Strenuous life of Leaders– Strict Meritocracy

Woodrow Wilson

• More of a Director• The Schoolmaster• Led a graduate seminar• More Venus

– Disinterested Technocrats– Bureaucrats– Social Workers

Two Sides of the Same Progressive Coin

• Albert Beveridge– Nationalist side of the coin

• Strong Imperialist• Strong Militarist• Strong believer in Anglo-Saxon racial superiority

– Social Reform side of the coin• Leader in the 1906 Federal Meat Inspection Act• Fought to end child labor• Worked for the 8 hour work day• Teddy Roosevelt’s biggest ally against “Conservatives”• Left the GOP to ran as a Progressive in 1912, with TR.

Progressives as Social Darwinists - Mold a New Society;

Control and Conquer Nature

Eugenics Conservationist

Imperialism Planned Economies,Corporatists

• In 1911, New Jersey passed a sterilization law:• The law was signed by Governor Woodrow Wilson. • It authorized the sterilization of insane, epileptic, and retarded persons, as well as certain criminals.

• Criminals could be sterilized, including repeat offenders.

• A board of examiners would rule if there was sufficient evidence of criminal tendencies.

•Over 50,000 people in the USA were sterilized during this period.

Teddy Roosevelt, “Society has no business to permit degenerates to

reproduce.” - President Woodrow Wilson

In an opinion for the Carrie Buck case, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote:

“Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

The film called The Birth of the Nation was released in 1915. It was based on a 1905 novel called The Clansman.

The success of the film at the box-office was uncertain until it was viewed at the White House, by Woodrow

Wilson

During the film, Wilson had jumped to his feet and shouted that “It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.”

Papers reported that Wilson loved the film and the money started to roll in.

William J. Simmons formed a new (the second) Ku Klux Klan in Georgia.

The 2nd Klan was by far the largest. It had a big presence in New Jersey and especially in the Midwest.

The prime focus of hatred went towards Catholic & Jewish immigrants and against any Catholics in America.

The Klan marched on Washington, DC in 1925.

Wilson’s Racial Attitudes• He believed that giving African Americans the right to vote was “…

the foundation of every evil in this country.”• During his first term in office, the House passed a law making racial

intermarriage a felony in the District of Columbia. • His Postmaster General also ordered that his Washington offices be

segregated, with the Treasury and Navy soon doing the same. • Photographs were required of all applicants for federal jobs. When

pressed by black leaders, Wilson replied, "The purpose of these measures was to reduce the friction. It is as far as possible from being a movement against the Negroes. I sincerely believe it to be in their interest."

World War OneWorld War One• Nationalizing IndustriesNationalizing Industries

• CensorshipCensorship

• PropagandaPropaganda

• Going Through MailGoing Through Mail

• State Sanctioned BrutalityState Sanctioned Brutality

• Stifling of DissentStifling of Dissent

• Loyalty OathsLoyalty Oaths

• Enemies ListEnemies List

• ImprisonmentsImprisonments

Espionage Act of 1917Sedition Act 1918To prosecute those sympathetic to the Central Powers, Anti-British Irish Republicans, many pacifists, members of left wing groups, IWW union members, Socialist Party members

Selective Service Act 5-18-1723,900,000 register, 2,800,000 inducted, 16% did not report

War Finance Corporation•Early version of New Deal policies•Was the model for Hoover’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation and FDR’s National Recovery Administration•Cost of WWI was 10 times that of the Civil War•It costs $290 Billion for one year (Korea $111 B for three years in, $165 B for 8 years in Vietnam) & £10 Billion in loans to Allies

Committee on Public Information – George Creel Hired “Four-minute men” to give 7,555,190 speeches in 5,200 towns.

Funded movies: The Kaiser, The Beast of Berlin, The Prussian Cur

Clarence Darrow (Scopes Monkey trial): Any man who refuses to back the President in this crisis is a traitor. Once Congress decided to go to war, the right to question that decision evaporated.

Herbert Hoover: National Food Administration“Supper is one of the worse pieces of extravagances that we can have in this country.”

•Food Rationing•Price Fixing•Meatless days•Wheatless Days

Hoover has 500,000 volunteers to knock on doors to get citizens to sign pledges and oaths.

Children had to sign a “Little American Promise”

Sedition Act: banned “uttering, printing, writing or publishing any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the United States government or military”

75 publications banned (many German and Irish, union, political, etc.). Foreign publications had to be translated and censored.

Some censored articles in:•The Nation— for criticizing Samuel Gompers•Freedman’s Journal— number of articles•Catholic Register— for reprinting Thomas Jefferson’s opinion that Ireland

should be an independent republic, free of British rule.

Even the pro-war, progressive New Republic was warned twice.

Any Criticism of the US Government could land you in jail.

Progressive jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, said such speech could be banned if it posed a: “Clear and Present Danger”

Man in Wisconsin got 2 ½ years for criticizing the Red Cross.

Hollywood producer got 10 years for showing British atrocities in a movie about the American Revolution!

One man was arrested for explaining why he did not want to buy a Liberty Bond while in his home.

The US Justice Department founded the American Protective League (APL) Citizens, who were to watch their neighbors.

The U.S. Justice Department secretly empowered private associations as volunteer spy-hunters. They turned in ration violators, those who did not buy Liberty bonds, broke into buildings, fire-bombed dissident meetings, etc.

The APL was broken up by new progressive Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer — who then launched the Red Scare against communists and sympathizers.

Anti-Communism and Anarchists Scare

Palmer Raids – came from a Progressive leader in a very progressive administration.

April-June 1919: 30 bombs were sent to government and industrial leaders, including John D. Rockefeller officials, but only a few reached their targets. In June, bombs were to go to 8 separate cities. One went off and damaged Palmer’s house.

The group responsible was led by Luigi Galleani, anItalian, communist anarchist.

In response, Palmer targeted unions and foreigners.

Alexander Mitchell Palmer

In October, Palmer told the Senate he had amassed over 60,000 names of dangerous anarchists and communists.November 7, 1919: Palmer deported 249 people, including “Red” Emma Goldman.

In January and February, 1920, more than 3,000 suspects were arrested. They were not allowed to see attorneys until cases could be made against them.

A new Assistant Secretary of Labor, Louis Freeland Post , freed roughly 1,400 of those arrested by Palmer, but 558 were still deported.

After Palmer tried to have Post impeached, Post’s adroit defense and a forecasted May Day uprising that did not take place ended Palmer’s momentum.

Anarchists continued on a bombing campaign for another 12 years.Galleanist anarchists Sacco’s & Vanzetti’s robbery and their murder of a policeman helped ignite more anarchist bombings once they were indicted.

Wilson hated Communism.The far Left hated Wilson for this.

Wilson used language far harsher than Ronald Regan used when describing the Bolsheviks.

He called them “Barbarians, Terrorists, Tyrants”

Bolsheviks used “mass terror of blood and terror” to accomplish their goals.

He would not recognize the Bolshevik government or even talk to them.

“There cannot be any common ground upon which it can stand with a Power whose conceptions of international relations are so entirely alien to its own, so utterly repugnant to its moral sense . . .”.

Wilson’s total rejection of Bolshevism stemmed from his commitment to Christianity.

Bolsheviks were atheists and there was a great fear of atheism in the United States.

Much of early Progressivism was rooted in “Social Gospel” Christianity.

Many later Progressives have a real hard time with Wilson’s hatred for Communism.

Often, they don’t bring it up or treat it in studies.

But, the first “Red Scare” was much bigger than McCarthy’s and came from a progressive regime.

The Election of 1920 will change everything