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I know that NYT editorial well. We can't say it won the election for Wilson, but it sure helped him take NY, where the Time's wish for a Wilson-Taft-Roosevelt outcome came true.

You cannot associate this editorial with Wilsonian racial politics. Aside from specific examples we might point to in retrospect, there was little in racist policy that could be nailed on Wilson as Governor of NJ. Perhaps he didn't have time. The NY Times was ecstactic for Wilson for two reasons: the tariff and Roosevelt. The Times hated both. In the tariff, the Times saw only betrayal by Taft and salvation in Wilson. In Roosevelt, the Times would take whatever it could get besides Roosevelt, and the paper correctly layed its bet on Wilson.

The Times was very positive towards Taft by 1911, but Wilson and the Democrats represented a lower tariff, which was the paper's overwhelming attitude. The other problem with Taft was his anti-trust position, which Wilson ended up endorsing (excepting unions and farmers; now there's some old time Democratic politics for ya!). During the election of 1912, Wilson played both sides of this question, thus avoiding the Time's condemnation for any anti-trust talk as being anti-business.

The Times was enthusiastic for Taft's racial politics, particularly his abandonment of the Roosevelt race card, and Taft's general color-blindness. I don't recall seeing anything in the Times during 1912 or 1913 that encouraged or supported Wilsons' racism and racial politics.

I don't think the Times was explicitly endorsing racism, either. However, if one is going to endorse a candidate, it seems that it is incumbent upon you to ensure that his policies are representative of what you think the proper course of action is. Much as Trent Lott has recently discovered. ;)

I don't think that Wilson turned out the way the Times intended, to be sure. But they did help make him, and thus bear some responsibility for him. Keep in mind, however, that while Wilson was indeed stunningly racist, I'm not really in the camp that tends to assign him blame for everything that's gone wrong since 1917 or so.