Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States (1913–1921). A devout Presbyterian, he became a noted historian and political scientist. As a reform Democrat, he was elected as the 34th governor of New Jersey in 1910 and as President in 1912. His first term as President resulted in major legislation including the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Trade Commission, the Clayton anti-trust act, and the Federal Farm Loan Act. Reelected in 1916, his second term centered on World War I. He began the first effective draft in 1917, raised billions through liberty loans, imposed a stiff income tax on the rich, set up the War Industries Board, promoted labor union growth, supervised agriculture and food production through the Lever act, took over control of the railroads, and suppressed anti-war movements including the left-wing of the Socialist Party and the IWW. He spent surprisingly little attention on military affairs, but provided the funding and food supplies that made Allied victory in 1918 possible. He went to Paris in 1919 to create the League of Nations and shape the Treaty of Versailles. Wilson collapsed with a debilitating stroke in 1919, as the homefront saw massive strikes and race riots, and wartime prosperity turn into postwar depression. He refused to compromise with the Republicans who controlled Congress, so the Senate failed to ratify the Versailles Treaty. It went into effect anyway, but the U.S. never joined the league of Nations. The consensus of presidential experts ranks him in the second tier of the best presidents.

Early life, education and family

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia in 1856 as the third of four children to Reverend Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson (February 28, 1822 Steubenville, Ohio–January 21, 1903 Princeton, New Jersey) and Janet Mary Woodrow (1830, London, England–April 15, 1888 Clarksville, Tennessee). His ancestry was Scots-Irish, his grandparents immigrating to the US from near Strabane, County Tyrone, in modern-day Northern Ireland. Wilson spent the majority of his childhood, to age 14, in Augusta, Georgia, where his father was minister of the First Presbyterian Church. He lived in the state capital Columbia, South Carolina from 1870-1874, where his father was professor at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Wilson's father was originally from Ohio where his grandfather had been an abolitionist and his uncles were Republicans. But his parents moved South in 1851 and identified with the Confederacy. They owned slaves and set up a Sunday school for them. They cared for wounded soldiers at their church. The father served as an army chaplain and from 1861 to 1898 was a founder and leader of the Southern Presbyterian church. Walworth ch 1

Wilson's difficulty in reading may have indicated dyslexia, but he taught himself shorthand to compensate and was able to achieve academically through determination and self-discipline. He was homeschooled and attended Davidson College for one year before transferring to College of New Jersey at Princeton, graduating in 1879. Afterward, he studied law at the University of Virginia and practiced briefly in Atlanta. He pursued doctoral study in social science at the new Johns Hopkins University. After completing and publishing his dissertation, Congressional Government, in 1886, he received his Ph.D. in political science.

Law Practice

In January 1882 Wilson decided to start his first law practice in Atlanta, a city which was then growing in important in the South. One of Wilson’s University of Virginia classmates, Edward Ireland Renick, invited Wilson to join his new law practice as partner. Renick had an office at 48 Marietta Street, next to the temporary state capital. Wilson joined him there in May 1882. He passed the Georgia Bar in October 1882 in a performance rated as “not short of brilliant” by the presiding judge. However, Renick and Wilson was a short-lived firm. Wilson spent much of his time reading history and political science and working on an article on government. With few cases to keep him occupied, Wilson quickly grew bored and disillusioned. Moreover, Wilson had studied law in order to eventually enter politics, but he discovered that he could not continue his study of government and simultaneously continue the reading of law necessary to stay proficient. In April 1883 Wilson applied to the Johns Hopkins University to study for his Ph.D. and in July 1883 Wilson left his law practice to begin his academic career.

Political writings and academic career

Wilson came of age in the decades after the American Civil War, when Congress was supreme—"the gist of all policy is decided by the legislature"—and corruption was rampant. Instead of focusing on individuals in explaining where American politics went wrong, Wilson focused on the American constitutional structure. Congressional Government, 180

Under the influence of Walter Bagehot's The English Constitution, Wilson saw the United States Constitution as pre-modern, cumbersome, and open to corruption. An admirer of Parliament (though he first visited London in 1919), Wilson favored a parliamentary system for the United States. Writing in the early 1880s, Wilson wrote:

"I ask you to put this question to yourselves, should we not draw the Executive and Legislature closer together? Should we not, on the one hand, give the individual leaders of opinion in Congress a better chance to have an intimate party in determining who should be president, and the president, on the other hand, a better chance to approve himself a statesman, and his advisers capable men of affairs, in the guidance of Congress?" The Politics of Woodrow Wilson, 41–48

Wilson started Congressional Government, his best known political work, as an argument for a parliamentary system, but Wilson was impressed by Grover Cleveland, and Congressional Government emerged as a critical description of America's system, with frequent negative comparisons to Westminster. Wilson himself claimed, "I am pointing out facts—diagnosing, not prescribing, remedies.". Congressional Government, 205

Wilson believed that America's intricate system of checks and balances was the cause of the problems in American governance. He said that the divided power made it impossible for voters to see who was accountable for ill-doing. If government behaved badly, Wilson asked,

"...how is the schoolmaster, the nation, to know which boy needs the whipping? ... Power and strict accountability for its use are the essential constituents of good government.... It is, therefore, manifestly a radical defect in our federal system that it parcels out power and confuses responsibility as it does. The main purpose of the Convention of 1787 seems to have been to accomplish this grievous mistake. The 'literary theory' of checks and balances is simply a consistent account of what our Constitution makers tried to do; and those checks and balances have proved mischievous just to the extent which they have succeeded in establishing themselves... Framers would be the first to admit that the only fruit of dividing power had been to make it irresponsible." Congressional Government, 186–7

The longest section of Congressional Government is on the United States House of Representatives, where Wilson pours out scorn for the committee system. Power, Wilson wrote, "is divided up, as it were, into forty-seven signatories, in each of which a Standing Committee is the court baron and its chairman lord proprietor. These petty barons, some of them not a little powerful, but none of them within reach ^* the full powers of rule, may at will exercise an almost despotic sway within their own shires, and may sometimes threaten to convulse even the realm itself." Congressional Government, 76. Wilson said that the committee system was fundamentally undemocratic, because committee chairs, who ruled by seniority, were responsible to no one except their constituents, even though they determined national policy.

In addition to their undemocratic nature, Wilson also believed that the Committee System facilitated corruption.

"the voter, moreover, feels that his want of confidence in Congress is justified by what he hears of the power of corrupt lobbyists to turn legislation to their own uses. He hears of enormous subsidies begged and obtained... of appropriations made in the interest of dishonest contractors; he is not altogether unwarranted in the conclusion that these are evils inherent in the very nature of Congress; there can be no doubt that the power of the lobbyist consists in great part, if not altogether, in the facility afforded him by the Committee system. Congressional Government, 132

By the time Wilson finished Congressional Government, Grover Cleveland was President, and Wilson had his faith in the United States government restored. When William Jennings Bryan captured the Democratic nomination from Cleveland's supporters in 1896, however, Wilson refused to stand by the ticket. Instead, he cast his ballot for John M. Palmer, the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Party (United States), or Gold Democrats. The short-lived party, which supported a gold standard, low tariffs, and limited government, represented one of the last stands of American Classical Liberalism as a political force. David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, "Gold Democrats and the Decline of Classical Liberalism, 1896-1900,"Independent Review 4 (Spring 2000), 555-75.

After experiencing the vigorous presidencies from William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and Wilson no longer entertained thoughts of parliamentary government at home. In his last scholarly work in 1908, Constitutional Government of the United States, Wilson said that the presidency "will be as big as and as influential as the man who occupies it". By the time of his presidency, Wilson merely hoped that Presidents could be party leaders in the same way prime ministers were. Wilson also hoped that the parties could be reorganized along ideological, not geographic, lines. "Eight words," Wilson wrote, "contain the sum of the present degradation of our political parties: No leaders, no principles; no principles, no parties." Frozen Republic, 145

Academic career

Wilson served on the faculties of Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan University (where he also coached the football team) before joining the Princeton faculty as professor of jurisprudence and political economy in 1890. While there, he was one of the faculty members of the short-lived coordinate college, Evelyn College for Women.

Wilson delivered an oration at Princeton's sesquicentennial celebration (1896) entitled "Princeton in the Nation's Service". (This has become a frequently alluded-to motto of the University, sometimes expanded to "Princeton in the World's Service.") In this famous speech, he outlined his vision of the university in a democratic nation, calling on institutions of higher learning "to illuminate duty by every lesson that can be drawn out of the past".

The trustees promoted Professor Wilson to president of Princeton in 1902. He had bold plans. Although the school's endowment was barely $4 million, he sought $2 million for a preceptorial system of teaching, $1 million for a school of science, and nearly $3 million for new buildings and salary raises. As a long-term objective, Wilson sought $3 million for a graduate school and $2.5 million for schools of jurisprudence and electrical engineering, as well as a museum of natural history. He achieved little of that because he was not a strong fund raiser, but he did grow the faculty from 112 to 174 men, most of them personally selected as outstanding teachers. The curriculum guidelines he developed proved important progressive innovations in the field of higher education. To enhance the role of expertise Wilson instituted academic departments and a system of core requirements where students met in groups of six with preceptors, followed by two years of concentration in a selected major. He tried to raise admission standards and to replace the "gentleman C" with serious study. Wilson aspired, as he told alumni, "to transform thoughtless boys performing tasks into thinking men."

In 1906-10 he attempted to curtail the influence of the elitist "social clubs" by moving the students into colleges. This was met with resistance from many alumni. Wilson felt that to compromise "would be to temporize with evil.". Walworth 1:109 Even more damaging was his confrontation with Andrew Fleming West, Dean of the graduate school, and West's ally, former President Grover Cleveland, a trustee. Wilson wanted to integrate the proposed graduate building into the same quadrangle with the undergraduate colleges; West wanted them separated. West outmaneuvered Wilson and the trustees rejected Wilson's plan for colleges in 1908, and then endorsed West's plans in 1909. The national press covered the confrontation as a battle of the elites (West) versus democracy (Wilson). Wilson, after considering resignation, decided to take up invitations to move into New Jersey state politics. Walworth v 1 ch 6, 7, 8

Governorship and Presidency 1913-1921

In 1911, Wilson was elected governor of New Jersey, and served in this office until becoming President in 1913. Wilson experienced early success by implementing his "New Freedom" pledges of antitrust modification, tariff revision, and reform in banking and currency matters.

Federal reserve 1913

Historians agree that, "The Federal Reserve Act was the most important legislation of the Wilson era and one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of the United States." Arthur S. Link, "Woodrow Wilson" in Henry F. Graff ed., The Presidents: A Reference History (2002) p 370 Wilson had to outmaneuver bankers and enemies of banks, North and South, Democrats and Republicans to secure passage of the Federal Reserve system in late 1913.1954 pp 43-53; Link 1956 pp 199-240 He took a bankers' plan that had been designed by conservative Republicans—led by Nelson A. Aldrich and banker Paul M. Warburg—and passed it. Wilson had to outmaneuver the powerful agrarian wing of the party, led by William Jennings Bryan, which strenuously denounced banks and Wall Street. They wanted a government owned central bank which could print paper money whenever Congress wanted; Wilson convinced them that because Federal Reserve notes were obligations of the government, the plan fit their demands. Southerners and westerners learned from Wilson that the system was decentralized into 12 districts and surely would weaken New York and strengthen the hinterlands. One key opponent, Congressman Carter Glass, was given credit for the bill, and his home of Richmond, Virginia, was made a district headquarters. Powerful Senator James Reed of Missouri was given two district headquarters in St. Louis and Kansas City. Wilson named Warburg and other prominent bankers to direct the new system. The New York branch dominated the Fed and thus power remained in Wall Street. The new system began operations in 1915 and played a major role in financing the Allied and American war efforts.

Other economic policies

The Underwood tariff lowered the tariff. The revenue thereby lost was replaced by a new federal income tax (authorized by the 16th Amendment, which had been sponsored by the Republicans). The "Seaman's Act" of 1915 improved working conditions for merchant sailors. As response to the Titanic disaster, it required all ships to be retrofitted with lifeboats. This caused the cruise ship "Eastland" to be topheavy; it sank in Chicago killing over 800 tourists.

A series of programs were targeted at farmers. The "Smith Lever" act of 1914 created the modern system of agricultural extension agents sponsored by the state agricultural colleges. The agents taught new techniques to farmers. The 1916 "Federal Farm Loan Board" issued low-cost long-term mortgages to farmers.

Child labor was curtailed by the Keating-Owen act of 1916, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1918.

The railroad brotherhoods threatened in summer 1916 to shut down the national transportation system. Wilson tried to bring labor and management together, but when management refused he had Congress pass the "Adamson Act" in September 1916, which avoided the strike by imposing an 8-hour work day in the industry (at the same pay as before). It helped Wilson gain union support for his reelection; the act was approved by the Supreme Court.

Antitrust

Wilson broke with the "big-lawsuit" tradition of his predecessors Taft and Roosevelt as "Trustbusters", finding a new approach to encouraging competition through the Federal Trade Commission, which stopped "unfair" trade practices. In addition he pushed through Congress the Clayton Antitrust Act making certain business practices illegal (such as price discrimination, agreements forbidding retailers from handling other companies’ products, and directorates and agreements to control other companies). The power of this legislation was greater than previous anti-trust laws, because individual officers of corporations could be held responsible if their companies violated the laws, bringing the consequences closer to home. More importantly, the new laws set out clear guidelines that corporations could follow, a dramatic improvement over the previous uncertainties. This law was considered the "Magna Carta" of labor by Samuel Gompers because it ended union liability antitrust laws. In 1916, under threat of a national railroad strike, he approved legislation that increased wages and cut working hours of railroad employees; there was no strike.

Until Wilson announced his support for the suffrage amendment, a group of women calling themselves the Silent Sentinels protested in front of the White House, holding banners such as "Mr. President—What will you do for woman suffrage?"

War policy—World War I

Wilson spent 1914 through the beginning of 1917 trying to keep America out of the war in Europe. He offered to be a mediator, but neither the Allies nor the Central Powers took his requests seriously. Republicans, led by Theodore Roosevelt, strongly criticized Wilson’s refusal to build up the U.S. Army in anticipation of the threat of war. Wilson won the support of the U.S. peace element by arguing that an army buildup would provoke war. He vigorously protested Germany’s use of submarines as illegal, causing his Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to resign in protest in 1915. Wilson was able to win reelection in 1916 by picking up many votes that had gone to Roosevelt or Eugene V. Debs in 1912. His supporters praised him for avoiding war with Germany or Mexico while maintaining a firm national policy. Renominated in 1916, Wilson's major campaign slogan was "He kept us out of the war." That is his supporters praised him for avoiding open conflict with Germany or Mexico. Wilson, however, never promised to keep out of war regardless of provocation. In his acceptance speech on September 2, 1917, Wilson pointedly warned Germany that submarine warfare that took American lives would not be tolerated:

The nation that violates these essential rights must expect to be checked and called to account by direct challenge and resistance. It at once makes the quarrel in part our own.

Wilson narrowly won the election, defeating Republican candidate Charles Evans Hughes, who had a strikingly similar progressive record.

Decision for War, 1917

When Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 and made a clumsy attempt to get Mexico as an ally (see Zimmermann Telegram), Wilson took America into the Great War as a “war to end all wars." He did not sign any alliance with Great Britain or France but operated as an independent force. He raised a massive army through conscription and gave command to General John J. Pershing, allowing Pershing a free hand as to tactics, strategy and even diplomacy.

Wilson had decided by then that the war had become a real threat to humanity. Unless the U.S. threw its weight into the war, as he stated in his declaration of war speech, Western civilization itself could be destroyed. His statement announcing a "war to end all wars" meant that he wanted to build a basis for peace that would prevent future catastrophic wars and needless death and destruction. This provided the basis of Wilson's Fourteen Points, which were intended to resolve territorial disputes, ensure free trade and commerce, and establish a peacemaking organization, which later emerged as the League of Nations.

To stop defeatism at home, Wilson pushed the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 through Congress to suppress anti-British, pro-German, or anti-war opinions. He welcomed socialists who supported the war, like Walter Lippmann but would not tolerate those who tried to impede the war efforts—many of whom ended up in prison. His wartime policies were strongly pro-labor, and the American Federation of Labor and other unions saw enormous growth in membership and wages. There was no rationing, so consumer prices soared. As income taxes increased, white-collar workers suffered. Appeals to buy war bonds were highly successful, however. Bonds had the result of shifting the cost of the war to the affluent 1920s.

Wilson set up the United States Committee on Public Information, headed by George Creel (thus its popular name, Creel Commission), which filled the country with patriotic anti-German appeals and conducted various forms of censorship.

Other foreign affairs

Between 1914 and 1918, the United States intervened in Latin America, particularly in Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, and Panama. The U.S. maintained troops in Nicaragua throughout his administration and used them to select the president of Nicaragua and then to force Nicaragua to pass the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty. American troops in Haiti forced the Haitian legislature to choose the candidate Wilson selected as Haitian president. American troops occupied Haiti between 1915 and 1934.

After Russia left the war following the Bolshevik Revolution and started providing help to the Germans, the Allies sent troops to prevent a German takeover. Wilson sent expeditionary forces to hold key cities and rail lines; they did not engage in combat. He withdrew the soldiers on April 1, 1920.[Levin, Woodrow Wilson and World Politics, p 67. Everett M. Dirksen, "Use of U.S. Armed Forces in Foreign Countries," Congressional Record, June 23, 1969, 16840-43

Versailles 1919

After the Great War, Wilson participated in negotiations with the stated aim of assuring statehood for formerly oppressed nations and an equitable peace. On January 8, 1918, Wilson made his famous Fourteen Points address, introducing the idea of a League of Nations, an organization with a stated goal of helping to preserve territorial integrity and political independence among large and small nations alike.

Wilson intended the Fourteen Points as a means toward ending the war and achieving an equitable peace for all the nations. He spent six months at Versailles for the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (making him the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office). He worked tirelessly to promote his plan. The charter of the proposed League of Nations was incorporated into the conference's Treaty of Versailles.

For his peacemaking efforts, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize. However, Wilson failed to win Senate support for ratification and the United States never joined the League. Republicans under Henry Cabot Lodge controlled the Senate after the 1918 elections, but Wilson refused to give them a voice at Paris and refused to agree to Lodge's proposed changes. The key point of disagreement was whether the League would diminish the power of Congress to declare war. Historians generally have come to regard Wilson's failure to win U.S. entry into the League as perhaps the biggest mistake of his administration, and even as one of the largest failures of any American presidency.^*

Post war: 1919-20

After the war, in 1919, major strikes and race riots broke out. In the Red Scare, his attorney general ordered the Palmer Raids to deport foreign born agitators and jail domestic ones. In 1918, Wilson had the Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs arrested for trying to discourage enlistment in the army. His conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Wilson broke with many of his closest political friends and allies in 1918-20. He desired a third term, but his Democratic party was in turmoil, with German voters outraged at their wartime harassment, and Irish voters angry at his failure to support Irish independence.

Incapacity

On October 2, 1919, Wilson suffered a serious stroke that almost totally incapacitated him; he could barely move his body. The extent of his disability was kept from the public until after his death. Wilson was purposely, with few exceptions, kept out of the presence of Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, his cabinet or Congressional visitors to the White House for the remainder of his presidential term. Meanwhile, his second wife, Edith Wilson, served as steward, selecting issues for his attention and delegating other issues to his cabinet heads. This was, as of 2006, the most serious case of presidential disability in American history and was later cited as a key example why ratification of the 25th Amendment was seen as important.

Significant presidential acts

Administration and Cabinet

Wilson's chief of staff ("Secretary") was Joseph Patrick Tumulty 1913-1921, but he was largely upstaged after 1916 by Wilson's wife, Edith Bolling Wilson, who assumed full control of Wilson's schedule after September 1919.


OFFICE	NAME	TERM

President	Woodrow Wilson	1913–1921
Vice President	Thomas R. Marshall	1913–1921

Secretary of State	William J. Bryan	1913–1915
	Robert Lansing	1915–1920
	Bainbridge Colby	1920–1921
Secretary of the Treasury	William G. McAdoo	1913–1918
	Carter Glass	1918–1920
	David F. Houston	1920–1921
Secretary of War	Lindley M. Garrison	1913–1916
	Newton D. Baker	1916–1921
Attorney General	James C. McReynolds	1913–1914
	Thomas W. Gregory	1914–1919
	A. Mitchell Palmer	1919–1921
Postmaster General	Albert S. Burleson	1913–1921
Secretary of the Navy	Josephus Daniels	1913–1921
Secretary of the Interior	Franklin K. Lane	1913–1920
	John B. Payne	1920–1921
Secretary of Agriculture	David F. Houston	1913–1920
	Edwin T. Meredith	1920–1921
Secretary of Commerce	William C. Redfield	1913–1919
	Joshua W. Alexander	1919–1921
Secretary of Labor	William B. Wilson	1913–1921

Supreme Court appointments

Wilson appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

Wilson and race

While president of Princeton, Wilson turned away black applicants for admission, saying that their desire for education was "unwarranted". ^*.

Wilson reintroduced official segregation in federal government offices, for the first time since 1863. "His administration imposed full racial segregation in Washington and hounded from office considerable numbers of black federal employees."^* Wilson fired many black Republican office holders, but also appointed a few black Democrats. W.E.B. DuBois, a leader of the NAACP, campaigned for Wilson and in 1918 was offered an Army commission in charge of dealing with race relations. (DuBois accepted but failed his Army physical and did not serve.)Ellis, Mark. "'Closing Ranks' and 'Seeking Honors': W. E. B. du Bois in World War I" Journal of American History 1992 79(1): 96-124. Issn: 0021-8723 Fulltext in Jstor When a delegation of blacks protested his discriminatory actions, Wilson told them that "segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen". In 1914, he told New York Times that "If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it".

Woodrow Wilson's History of the American People, praised the Ku Klux Klan of the 1860s, and was repeatedly quoted in the film The Birth of a Nation, which has come under fire for alleged racism. Wilson was a classmate of Thomas Dixon, author of the novel The Clansman upon which the film is based. Dixon arranged a special White House preview (this was the first time a film was shown in the White House). Wilson did not make the statement, "It is like writing history with lightning...and yet it is all so true." That was invented by a Hollywood press agent. In fact Wilson felt he had been tricked by Dixon and publicly said he did not like the film; Wilson blocked its showing during the war. Link vol 2 pp 252-54.

White ethnics

Wilson had some harsh words to say about immigrants in his history books. However, after he entered politics in 1910, Wilson worked to integrate new immigrants into the Democratic party, into the army, and into American life. For example, the war bond campaigns were set up so that ethnic groups could boast how much money they gave. He demanded in return during the war that they repudiate any loyalty to the enemy.

Irish Americans were powerful in the Democratic party and opposed going to war alongside their enemy Britain, especially after the violent suppression of the Easter Rebellion of 1916. Wilson won them over in 1917 by promising to ask Britain to give Ireland its independence. At Versailles, however, he reneged and the Irish-American community vehemently denounced him. Wilson, in turn, blamed the Irish Americans and German Americans for the lack of popular support for the League of Nations, saying, "There is an organized propaganda against the League of Nations and against the treaty proceeding from exactly the same sources that the organized propaganda proceeded from which threatened this country here and there with disloyalty, and I want to say--I cannot say too often--any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready."American Rhetoric, "Final Address in Support of the League of Nations", Woodrow Wilson, delivered 25 Sept 1919 in Pueblo, CO. John B. Duff, "German-Americans and the Peace, 1918-1920" American Jewish Historical Quarterly 1970 59(4): 424-459. and Duff, "The Versailles Treaty and the Irish-Americans" Journal of American History 1968 55(3): 582-598. Issn: 0021-8723

Later life

In 1921, Wilson and his wife retired from the White House to a home in the Embassy Row section of Washington, D.C. Wilson continued going for daily drives and attended Keith's vaudeville theater on Saturday nights. Wilson died there on February 3, 1924. He was buried in Washington National Cathedral. Mrs. Wilson stayed in the home another 37 years, dying on December 28, 1961. Mrs. Wilson left the home to the National Trust for Historic Preservation to be made into a museum honoring her husband. Woodrow Wilson House opened as a museum in 1964.

Trivia

Wilson remains the only American President to have earned a research doctoral degree.
His carved initials are still visible on the underside of a table in the History Department at Johns Hopkins University.
Wilson was an early automobile enthusiast, and he took daily rides while he was President. His favorite car was a 1919 Pierce-Arrow.
Wilson was an avid fan of the New York Giants and Washington Senators baseball clubs.
His earliest memory, from age 3, was of hearing that Abraham Lincoln had been elected and that a war was coming.
Wilson would forever recall standing for a moment at Robert E. Lee's side and looking up into his face.
As a boy Wilson owned a greyhound named "Mountain Boy."
Wilson (born in Virginia and raised in Georgia) was the first president from any state that had joined the Confederate States of America to be elected since 1848 (Zachary Taylor, born in Virginia), and the first from there to take office since 1865 (Andrew Johnson born in North Carolina).
Wilson was also the first Democrat elected to the presidency since Grover Cleveland in 1892. The next Democrat elected was FDR.
Wilson was one of only two Presidents (Theodore Roosevelt was the first) to become president of the National Historical Association.
Wilson was president of the American Political Science Association from 1910 to 1911.
Wilson has been the subject of books by three noteworthy authors. Herbert Hoover's The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson is sympathetic and remains the only book written by one ex-President about another one. Sigmund Freud and William Bullitt's Thomas Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study is unsympathetic and was unpublished for 30 years after Freud's death.
Wilson is the only U.S. President buried in Washington, D.C.
Wilson was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.
One of Wilson's grandsons (The Very Reverend Francis Sayre, Jr) was Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, where Wilson's tomb is located. (Another grandson, Woodrow Wilson Sayre, climbed Mount Everest in 1962 reaching an altitude of 25,500 feet).

In Fiction

In Harry Turtledove's "Great War" trilogy of alternate history novels, Wilson is elected 9th President of the Confederate States of America on the Whig ticket in 1910.

Media

References

Secondary sources

Bailey; Thomas A. Wilson and the Peacemakers: Combining Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace and Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal (1947)
Brands, H. W. ''Woodrow Wilson 1913-1921'’ (2003)
Clements, Kendrick, A. Woodrow Wilson : World Statesman (1999)
Clements, Kendrick A. The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson (1992)
Clements, Kendrick A. "Woodrow Wilson and World War I," Presidential Studies Quarterly 34:1 (2004). pp 62+.
Greene, Theodore P. Ed. Wilson at Versailles (1957)
Hofstadter, Richard. "Woodrow Wilson: The Conservative as Liberal" in The American Political Tradition (1948), ch. 10.
Knock, Thomas J. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (1995)
N. Gordon Levin, Jr., Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America's Response to War and Revolution (1968)
Arthur S. Link, "Woodrow Wilson" in Henry F. Graff ed., The Presidents: A Reference History (2002) pp 365-388
Link, Arthur Stanley. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917 (1972) standard political history of the era
Link, Arthur Stanley. Wilson: The Road to the White House (1947), first volume of standard biography (to 1917); Wilson: The New Freedom (1956); Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality: 1914-1915 (1960); Wilson: Confusions and Crises: 1915-1916 (1964); Wilson: Campaigns for Progressivism and Peace: 1916-1917 (1965), the last volume of standard biography
Link, Arthur S.; Wilson the Diplomatist: A Look at His Major Foreign Policies (1957)
Link, Arthur S.; Woodrow Wilson and a Revolutionary World, 1913-1921 (1982)
Livermore, Seward W. Woodrow Wilson and the War Congress, 1916-1918 (1966)
May, Ernest R. The World War and American Isolation, 1914-1917 (1959)
Saunders, Robert M. In Search of Woodrow Wilson: Beliefs and Behavior (1998)
Walworth, Arthur. Woodrow Wilson Vol. 1 (1958), Pulitzer prize winning biography to 1915.
Arthur Walworth; Wilson and His Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 W. W. Norton, 1986
(12)-Taken directly from Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

Primary sources

The Papers of Woodrow Wilson ed. By Arthur S. Link complete in 69 vol, at major academic libraries. Annotated edition of all of WW's letters, speeches and writings plus many letters written to him
Tumulty; Joseph P. Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him (1921) memoir by chief of staff
Wilson, Woodrow. The New Freedom (1913) 1912 campaign speeches
Wilson, Woodrow. Why We Are at War (1917) six war messages to Congress, Jan- April 1917
Wilson, Woodrow. Selected Literary & Political Papers & Addresses of Woodrow Wilson (3 vol 1918 and later editions)
Wilson, Woodrow. Messages & Papers of Woodrow Wilson 2 vol (ISBN 1135198128)
Wilson, Woodrow. The New Democracy. Presidential Messages, Addresses, and Other Papers (1913-1917) 2 vol 1926 (ISBN 0898757754

External links

Official White House biography
Audio clips of Wilson's speeches
Woodrow Wilson – Biography
First Inaugural Address
Second Inaugural Address
President Wilson's War Address
Woodrow Wilson Biography
Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library at His Birthplace Staunton, Virginia
Boyhood Home of President Woodrow Wilson Augusta, GA
Woodrow Wilson House Washington,DC
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Washington,DC
Woodrow Wilson Links
Library of Congress: "Today in History: December 28"
Library of Congress: "Today in History: June 9"
Woodrow Wilson Ancestral Home http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/product.aspx?ProductID=2941

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