Let’s see, Wilson was elected in 1912/
Federal spending in 1860 was 1.4% of GDP. By 1916 it had ridden all the way to 2.1%. Then spike drastically in the next couple of years.
You might want to check into history of what else was going on in those years
I actually have a spreadsheet put together from some of these sites, so I know you can select numbers to "prove" just about anything.
But the base-line has to be President Washington in 1792, and that was 2.3% of GDP.
From there excluding war payment years spending went down as low as 1.4% in 1796 and as high as 3.9% in 1816.
Yes, different time periods had somewhat different averages, but overall the numbers never changed much, excluding war payment years, before 1917.
For example: Wilson in 1916 spent 2.1% of GDP, virtually the same as President Washington in 1792.
Then in 1917 it rose to 3.9% -- was that strictly the First World War, or was it also some effect from the new amendments and Federal Reserve?
Please consider, if it was strictly war spending, then Wilson loses all practical claim to being a "big government Progressive", and that would fly in the face of some of what we think we know about Wilson.
But even if we dethrone Wilson from the chair of "Progressive", the numbers still support, with no ambiguity, the claims of "Big Government" New Deal Franklin Roosevelt, and the election results from 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944 show that FDR had no stronger support anywhere than in the Solid South.
So my point remains valid -- that the Solid South loved, loved Democrat Big Government just so long as they believed they would be prime beneficiaries from redistributionist largess.
Finally, by the election of 1964 Southerners realized that Democrats did not have their best interests at heart, and switched, for the first time, supporting Republican Barry Goldwater.
I remember it well...