Posted on 11/26/2009 12:08:35 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
The real Woodrow Wilson, it turns out, was a far less admirable character than the cardboard hero we learned about in school. In fact, in some ways the boring Midwesterner who succeeded him looks better than him when one compares what the two actually accomplished.
Harding famously said he wanted to restore normalcy to a nation on the verge of a breakdown at the end of the Great War and set about working to heal the wounds that divided the nation. During the war, Wilson attacked those he called hyphenated Americans as disloyal and set about systematically using his power as president to silence opposition to his policies.
Perhaps the most famous of Wilsons domestic critics was Eugene Debs, who had run and was to run again for the presidency as a socialist. Debs opposed what author John Dos Passos always referred to as Mr. Wilsons War, and said so. Never one to take criticism lightly, Wilson had Debs arrested, tried for sedition and shipped off to a federal prison for 10 years.
As he was leaving the White House, Wilsons closest advisers, including Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, who is not himself remembered as a great champion of civil liberties, urged the departing president to free Debs. Wilson scowled, grabbed the pardon and scrawled denied across it as one final mean-spirited act before turning things over to Harding, whom he dismissed as uncultured, uneducated and hardly fit to be in the same room with him.
As president, Harding unhesitatingly freed Debs and others unfairly persecuted by Wilson; his normalcy was, it seems, built on a respect for the Constitution, and while he craved the good opinion of others as much as any politician, he didnt spend his time dreaming up ways to send his critics to prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Voices from the past are crying out warnings of bad things to come.
“Woodrow Wilson, was a much darker figure than history acknowleges”
I’ve only heard it mentioned a couple of times in documentaries,
but I was suprised to hear about Wilson having a screening of D.W. Griffith’s
in the White House”Birth Of A Nation” in which the KKK are portrayed
as noble warriors defending the country against demonic black Americans.
Although it is reported that Wilson later disavowed approval of
the film’s topic, it is suprising he even allowed it to screened
in “the people’s house”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation
Every single analysis of presidents I’ve ever read has always referred to Wilson as one of the great presidents. I think much of that was due to his idea of the League of Nations. Which the U.S. failed to enter. All the nasty stuff about Wilson the ardent racist and the persecutor of free speech and the prosecutor of dissidents has been conveniently ignored. Wilson must be looked at as one of the worst presidents.
Thanks CF. You sold a book.
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Thanks Clintonfatigued.The real Woodrow Wilson, it turns out, was a far less admirable character than the cardboard hero we learned about in school. In fact, in some ways the boring Midwesterner who succeeded him looks better than him when one compares what the two actually accomplished.Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. |
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I always have found it interesting how historians glossed over Wilson's racism. He also was no friend to women, either. He adamantly opposed voting rights for women until it became politically useless to do so.
Let's not forget a few more of Wilson's "accomplishments".
He ran for his second term as President on "he kept us out of war." How's that hope and change working for you?
The Federal Income Tax was enacted under Wilson (although proposed before he assumed the office)... I think it started out at a very low rate of something like 5% max. So, I guess, we can blame "unintended consequences".
Direct election of Senators enacted during Wilson's first term (although proposed before he assumed the office)... That's worked out well.
Prohibition became the law of the land and a Constitutional Amendment proposed and enacted during his time in office. How's that hope and change working???
And we saw Women's Suffrage become a constitutional amendment... no comment there...
I agree with you though -- he was a trouble maker and he showed what an elitist "intellectual" could do with the power of the presidency which FDR would exploit big time 12 years later. And now we see where that logical progression may be headed.
Yes, there’s a long list of Woodrow Wilson disasters. He was a typical Democrat intellectual who was very pleased with his own high intelligence and completely lacking in common sense.
“Which U.S. president ranks as America’s greatest depression fighter?
Not the fabled Franklin Delano Roosevelt,....”
Read up: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9880
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