Free Republic

On Tuesday evening, amid much splendor and spectacle, the president of the United States will be welcomed by a joint session of Congress, there to be cheered and applauded like a homecoming conqueror, and, before an audience of lawmakers, diplomats, military officers, and dignitaries, to deliver his State of the Union oration in a live nationwide broadcast.It is the most preposterous and gaudy ritual in American political life. Thomas Jefferson will be turning in his grave.Like Moses, Jefferson was burdened with a speech impediment and disliked public speaking. Unlike the Hebrew lawgiver, Jefferson wasn't compelled by Heaven to preach to...

Full title: Would progressive ideologues freak out if an insurance company claimed that policies were living and breathing documents? At the time I signed my policy. That's the deal. But what if the insurance company had a panel of nine experts wearing black robes that actually said that the policy was a little different than that, just because I signed my policy 5 years ago? Hey, things have changed. We need to evolve with the times. All that insurance providers ask or desire is permission - in an era when "development," "evolution," is the scientific word - to interpret this...

While Wilson has a complicated legacy that includes genuine accomplishments, his record in the District is unambiguously negative. In a diverse area with a rich black history, we should not have the name of an unabashed white supremacist atop one of the District’s few public high schools. When Wilson arrived in 1913, he found that the District offered black people more opportunities than anywhere else in the South. It may not have been “the colored man’s paradise,” as some contemporaries claimed, but the District had the nation’s largest black community — about 95,000 people, nearly 30 percent of the city’s...

There is something deliciously ironic about academic and media elites rethinking Woodrow Wilson, probably the president they have lionized most until the current occupant of the White House took office. It is an irony that Mr. Wilson himself would most likely not appreciate, and not just because he didn't appreciate many ironies. My predecessor at Accuracy in Academia, Dan Flynn, summed up the turnaround nicely in an article he wrote for the American Spectator recently. "The New York Times calls America's 28th president 'an unapologetic racist whose administration rolled back the gains that African-Americans achieved just after the Civil War,...

He re-segregated the federal workforce after gains made in the Reconstruction era, and removed black officials. This was no accident. In his 1901 book, “A History of the American People,” he extolled the Ku Klux Klan for helping “the white men of the South” to rid themselves of “the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant Negroes.” But here’s the thing: Racism isn’t the only aspect of Wilson’s character and career that should give Princeton pause about honoring him. Most notably, President Wilson led the United States into an unnecessary and disastrous war. World War I has...

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. Former Democratic President Woodrow Wilson may be purged from his alma mater, Princeton University. The old “Schoolmaster of Politics”, as he was known for his academic background at Cornell, Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan and finally president of Princeton U, has been thrown under the bus by its current president for being a politically incorrect progressive. Also known as a plain old racist. Woody was indeed a racist. Though even on his worst day he was still about 40% less racist than...

Back in 2008, the Princeton Alumni Weekly published the results of a panel deliberation ranking the university's most influential alumni. At the top of the list was James Madison (class of 1771) and close behind him, in third place, was Woodrow Wilson (class of 1879), who was Princeton's president from 1902 to 1910. He left the university to enter politics first as governor of New Jersey between 1911 and 1913 and then as President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. By all accounts, his presidency at Princeton transformed the school from a college for playboys into the...

Why did it take so long? I don't know. But it's happened. Students at Princeton University have discovered that the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs on their campus is named after … well … after Woodrow Wilson. Why is that important? Because, say the students, Wilson was a racist. And he wasn't just a garden variety racist. He was the most racist US President of the 20th century. Maybe the most racist president ever. In an editorial in the New York Times by the grandson of a victim of Wilson's purge of blacks from all management responsibilities...

James Taranto at The Wall Street Journal often tackles newspapers contradicting themselves under the headline "Two Papers in One!" Wednesday's edition, though, went back to point out that the sudden revulsion at Woodrow Wilson's racism is at odds with The New York Times editorial page arguing in favor of Wilson for President back in those times. Now Wilson represents a "toxic legacy" of unapologetic racism, but in 1912 , the Times oozed over him as "a man of high equipment for the office, worthy of the full confidence of the people." To wit:

The Black Lives Matter movement has frequently been criticized by conservatives, and for good reason. The organization is undeniably radical and practices race-based intimidation. For instance, slightly less than two weeks ago, activists attacked white students studying in a library at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Their "sin," apparently, was their skin -- the white students were born racists and criminals per the eyes of Black Lives Matter. The innocent students were slammed against the walls, cursed at, and berated for their supposed racial privilege. Having said that, even a broken clock is right twice a day. In subject...

On the 100th anniversary of President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration in 2013 I wrote an op-ed published in the Richmond Post-Dispatch reminding its readers of the retrograde racial views of our 28th president that few Americans were aware of (except for historians of the Wilson presidency who have mentioned it in their works). Later, professor Randy Barnett of the Georgetown University Law Center quoted extensively from my article to call for the removal of Wilson's name from all public buildings in the country. The issue of Wilson's racial views and policies then virtually disappeared from the public discourse until students at...

The racially charged protests that have roiled 23 universities from Yale to the University of Missouri in recent weeks reached Princeton on Wednesday. Members of the Black Justice League left their classes and occupied historic Nassau Hall, which houses the Princeton administration's offices. They demanded that officials acknowledge the racist legacy of Woodrow Wilson - who was president of Princeton before becoming president of the United States and expunge his name from anything named after him. They further demanded "cultural competency training" for anyone teaching at Princeton, courses on the "history of marginalized people," and a designated public space for...

Black Lives Matter activists at Princeton University have taken over the president’s office and say they won’t leave until the school acknowledges former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson as a racist and renames all buildings currently honoring him on campus. Members of a group calling themselves the Black Justice League walked out of their classes late Wednesday morning and assembled at Nassau Hall, where they were met by Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber. The students presented a list of demands inspired by similar lists that have been seen at Yale University, the University of Missouri, and elsewhere.

The Republican Party of the 1920's swept into power during a financial crisis. Errors in the Fed’s monetary policy in 1919 in kept rates too low to benefit the sale of Victory bonds. The Fed then tightened excessively due to inflation, creating a financial shock and depression from 1920 to 1921. At that time, the Republican Party viewed increasing tariffs as good policy. Thus, during the sixty seventh Congress, the Emergency Tariff Act of 1921 was passed as a temporary measure until a more comprehensive measure could be drafted. Ultimately, Fordney-McCumber passed in 1922, imposing an ad valorem rate of...

A statue of Woodrow Wilson may be removed from the University of Texas statuary because of the underlying intent of the effigy, which was commissioned by a Confederate veteran who admired Wilson's presidency. A task force was assigned the duty of explaining why the statues need to come down, or at the very least have a plaque added which will provide some "historical context." The reasoning behind the task force's recommendation is explained in its report. Six of the seven statues featured at the university were commissioned in 1916 by Confederate veteran and the school's largest initial benefactor George Littlefield...

The growing movement to find new appellations for buildings, landmarks and even bodies of water named after Confederate leaders has finally expanded to reach Woodrow Wilson, America’s 28th president, a model progressive Democrat and a world-class racist scumbag.

Now that we are expunging the legacy of past racism from official places of honor, we should next remove the name Woodrow Wilson from public buildings and bridges. Wilson’s racist legacy — in his official capacity as President — is undisputed. In The long-forgotten racial attitudes and policies of Woodrow Wilson, Boston University historian William R. Keylor provides a useful summary: [On March 4th, 1913] *SNIP* Washington was flooded with revelers from the Old Confederacy, whose people had long dreamed of a return to the glory days of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, when southern gentlemen ran the country. Rebel...

Woodrow Wilson. Here's Why. If you wanted to identify, with confidence, the very worst president in American history, how would you go about it? One approach would be to consult the various academic polls on presidential rankings that have been conducted from time to time since Harvard’s Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. pioneered this particular survey scholarship in 1948. Bad idea. Most of those surveys identify Warren G. Harding of Ohio as the worst ever. This is ridiculous. Harding presided over very robust economic times. Not only that, but he inherited a devastating economic recession when he was elected in 1920...

Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other party, remember that from its founding until the 1960s, people committed terrible deeds in the name of the Democratic Party. In our own party, slavery and Jim Crow all too often were justified in the Democratic platform. Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, possibly the first grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, spoke at the 1868 Democratic National Convention. Most Klansmen were Democrats. The party refused to condemn the Klan as late as its 1924 convention, a gathering wags called “the Klanbake.” Woodrow Wilson, a...

23/02/2006 - Duke: Duke study posits presidents had mental illness U-Wire via NewsEdge Corporation : By Haley Hoffman, The Chronicle (Duke) DURHAM, N.C. -- No one would ever expect the general who led the Union army to victory in the Civil War to have a debilitating fear of blood. But Ulysses S. Grant was among the 49 percent of former U.S. presidents afflicted by mental illness, according to an article published recently by psychiatrists at the Duke University Medical Center. Jonathan Davidson, professor of psychiatry and director of the Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Program, has a particular interest in history,...