Posted on 01/05/2014 9:08:24 AM PST by rickmichaels
Woodrow Wilson is widely disparaged as an ineffectual dreamer. But as A. Scott Berg’s newly published biography of the 28th President of the United States (excerpted recently on these pages) makes clear, Wilson was in fact an exceptional leader. He founded the Federal Reserve, enacted the Clayton Antitrust Act, reduced tariffs, and tried admirably to veto the lunacy of Prohibition. He is rivaled only by Thomas Jefferson, and perhaps John Quincy Adams, as the greatest intellect ever to occupy the White House. He composed his own speeches and delivered them ex tempore — often with overpowering eloquence.
More important, Wilson was the greatest prophet of the Twentieth Century, in many ways surpassing and even presaging Gandhi and Mandela: He was the first person to inspire the masses of the world with the vision of enduring peace, and of the acceptance and imposition of international law and of postcolonial institutions indicative of the equal rights of all nationalities and the common interest of all peoples.
(Excerpt) Read more at fullcomment.nationalpost.com ...
As a Nixonian, he pretty much accepted the historical interpretation current in his formative years of Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt as great men. Hence his massive book on FDR and hence this article.
While I disagree with Black about Wilson -- he really does overdo it -- I appreciate that he's bringing a different point of view here that might make people think and reconsider opinions that have become automatic and unthinking lately.
Nowadays it's become as commonplace and automatic to damn Wilson as it once was to praise him, and when that happens, maybe it's a good idea to consider whether we've gone too far.
I am all for that. Stop putting politicians on coins and naming ships after them. I make an exception for George Washington.
Black may not claim to be leftist, but his piece certainly was. I don’t think we’ve gone far enough with damning Wilson. The damage he inflicted (and later followed up by his disciples) has caused enormous damage to our country. If we were to roll back most of our policies to 1913, just before he took office, we’d be better off for it.
That is a handsome coin...
Penny
Nickel
Dime
Quarter
Half-Dollar (currently used on the Silver Dollar)
Dollar
...actions speak louder then words
***
I think you meant to say
“actions speak louder THAN words”.
http://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/than_then.htm
I like those choices...
:pick pick pick:
It is a shame that FDR is even on a dime.
***
Well, maybe it’s appropriate, as soon we will all be singing that Depression song “Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime?”
Evil is evil.
:)
Sigh. I sure wish I didn’t agree with you.
My brother, who is a lib, recently said to me about The Great Depression: “It could never happen again in this country.’
I was astonished. I opined that the country was full of people in 1928 who thought the good times would never end.
He was also a supporter of eugenics:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2855930/posts
You are projecting rubbish into our current era.
The sentiments you see here on FR weighing against Wilson’s legacy were even more vociferously leveled against Wilson in his second term.
He rode into Washington wildly popular among democrats as Obama-like but was able to win the presidency by challenging a divided Republican party; sound familiar? GWH Bush v. H. Ross Perot v. William Jefferson Clinton redux. Wilson received just above 40% of the popular vote.
During his second presidential campaign he had lost a lot of support as it became evident to people that he was not a practical man, just an idealist, a dreamer, good talker, as they say in Texas “All Hat and No Cattle”. He narrowly won his second term in the Electoral College and he received less than 50% of the popular vote.
Wilson approached party leaders to inform them he would seek a third term as president and they told him in effect to get lost.
He left office as a very unpopular president.
His greatest legacy was indirect in that it left voters desiring to bring in a practically minded president and that they did by electing Harding and Coolidge who both won overwhelmingly the popular vote.
The writer fails to mention the above points.
Nixon was not a conservative.
You can read Nixon's remarks on the opening of the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars here:
Along with most Presidents of the past half century, I have long been a student of Woodrow Wilson.
Nixon's Quaker mother was a great admirer of Wilson, and he definitely tapped into that. Popular culture in the 40s was saturated with the idea that we could have avoided WWII if only we'd listened to Wilson, and Nixon, like many in his generation, picked up on that notion and clung to it.
A lot of Nixon's interest in foreign policy related to Wilsonian grand schemes for peace building. He wanted to build international institutions and some kind of system to ensure peace, and he saw Wilson as a precursor. Garry Wills's book on Nixon pursues the idea that Nixon was the last Wilsonian liberal.
What would Wilson say?
“Hey, you know that Marx guy has some great ideas. Let’s nationalize it because the little people are too stupid to make their own decisions.”
I was laughing at first, but it did not take long for my eyes to glaze over. Everything written about Wilson sounds like its pre-programmed from past college days. This is largely a regurgitation of the kinds of things you will see in a history book without any self discovery about who Wilson really was.
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