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• Born: 28 December 1856
• Birthplace: Staunton, Virginia
• Died: 3 February 1924 (natural causes)
• Best Known As: The World War I president

Woodrow Wilson was the president who led the United States through World War I. After a respectable career as a scholar, Wilson became the president of Princeton College in 1902. He entered politics in 1910 when he was persuaded to run for governor of New Jersey. After only two years as governor, he beat out Teddy Roosevelt and William H. Taft in the presidential election of 1912. Although he first championed isolationism, he became a strong advocate for U.S. involvement in World War I. When the war ended in 1918, he pushed for the U.S. to join the League of Nations, precursor to the United Nations. His plans were confounded by Congress, but Wilson still won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919. The same year he suffered a stroke which left him party paralyzed; he was assisted in his duties by the First Lady, Edith Galt Wilson. Wilson finished his second term and was succeeded by Warren G. Harding in 1921.

Often thought of as an egghead, Wilson was also a winning football coach at Wesleyan University for two seasons (1888-89)... He was the 28th president... Wilson is the only U.S. president buried in Washington, D.C.

(b. Staunton, Virginia, 28 Dec. 1856; d. 3 Feb. 1924) US; Governor of New Jersey 1911 – 13, President 1913 – 21 The son of a presbyterian minister, Wilson's education was affected by his father's peripatetic calling and by his own ill-health. His studies at Davidson College in North Carolina were cut short by illness. When restored to health, he took his first degree at the College of New Jersey. Ill-health again cut short his studies after he entered the University of Virginia Law School and he continued his studies at home. He was admitted to the bar in Georgia and practised law briefly before entering Johns Hopkins University to pursue an academic career. Wilson published a book, Congressional Government, in 1885 that was to form the basis of his Ph.D. degree and was to become a classic work on American government. He took up posts at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, and Wesleyan University, Connecticut, before being appointed professor of jurisprudence and political economy at his old college, the College of New Jersey, in 1890. Six years later, the college became Princeton University. He published several books, including a five-volume history of the American people. In 1902, after variously declining the presidency of the University of Virginia, he was elected president of Princeton. He proved a reforming leader of the institution, battling — not always successfully — to achieve change.

He harboured an interest in the real world of politics. He toyed with the prospect of contesting a Senate race. In 1910, he obtained the Democratic nomination for Governor of New Jersey and won election in the November. Inaugurated in January 1911, he soon established a reputation as a reform Governor, distancing himself from the party bosses that had helped secure his election and battling successfully to reform the election process. He achieved the passage of social reform legislation. His political stance moved from proactive to reactive in 1912 after the Republicans won control of the state legislature. He vetoed fifty-seven measures. At the same time, he began campaigning for the presidential nomination. At the Democratic convention in July 1912, delegates were deadlocked and Wilson came from behind to win after forty-six ballots. In the election, he developed an effective campaigning style and was helped by the intervention of former President, Teddy Roosevelt, on a Progressive ticket, effectively splitting the Republican vote. Wilson won over 6 million votes, Roosevelt just over 4 million, and Taft 3 million. Wilson was inaugurated on 4 March 1913.

As President, Wilson launched a number of measures, dubbed the New Freedom programme, designed to promote competition and to remove the privileges of special interests. He achieved both tariff and banking reform. In 1916 he was nominated for a second term and won re-election with a clear but not overwhelming majority over his Republic opponent, Charles Evans Hughes. (Wilson amassed 9.1 million votes to 8.5 million for Hughes.) Though he had maintained American neutrality in the opening years of the First World War, a fact used in his re-election campaign ("he kept us out of the war"), the resumption by Germany in 1917 of unrestricted submarine warfare led Wilson to sever diplomatic relations with Germany. He then authorized the arming of merchant ships and, after several American ships were sunk, sought a declaration of war by Congress. Though it took time for American forces to be marshalled and sent in strength, Wilson proved an effective wartime leader, aided by some competent military leaders.

Following the defeat of Germany, Wilson decided to lead the American delegation to the peace conference, a decision for which there was no precedent. Wilson had already enunciated his "fourteen points" for achieving peace and set sail for Paris in order to achieve their realization. Despite his position and his forceful rhetoric, he had to fight with the other participants to achieve his goals and was not always successful. However, the resulting treaty, the Versailles Treaty, did incorporate his cherished goal, the creation of a League of Nations. He returned to the USA in July 1919 in order to campaign for its ratification. The Republicans had captured control of both Houses of Congress in the 1918 mid-term elections and many were not sympathetic to US involvement in the League. Some were adamantly opposed, others were prepared to compromise. For Wilson, it was the whole treaty or it was nothing and he set out on a speaking tour to rally popular support for it. Although he travelled 10,000 miles, he failed to complete his tour. On 26 September, in Colorado, he was taken ill: according to some accounts he suffered a mild stroke and, according to others, a nervous breakdown. On 2 October, back in Washington, DC, he had a serious stroke which left him partly paralysed. During the remaining months of his presidency, he was confined to his sick room, messages being transmitted through his wife Edith. So protective was his wife that it was unclear then, and since, what decisions were actually being taken by the President and what was being decided on his behalf by his wife. He was largely sidelined in the presidential election of 1920, the Democratic nominee, James Cox, losing to the Republican Warren G. Harding. Wilson lingered another three years. He had another stroke early in 1924 and died on 3 February. His wife Edith, whom he had married in the White House after his first wife died, lived for nearly another forty years. She died in December 1961.

Though adopting liberal positions on trade and competition, Wilson was highly conservative in other respects. He failed to campaign for female suffrage and he approved segregation of the races in government offices. However, what raised him to particular prominence was his reputation as a reformer and, later, his wartime leadership. He believed in leading from the front. His essential failing was that he believed that he alone was capable of leading. He believed he knew what was right — his world-view was essentially religious and he came to see himself as God's representative on earth — and was not prepared to consider compromise in the battle to achieve the outcomes he wanted. Several measures that could have been saved by negotiation, including the Treaty of Versailles, were lost as a result of his intransigence. Principle was accorded precedence over friendship and political loyalty. He variously turned on those who had put him in positions of power. At the end of his tenure of office, he even turned against his most trusted lieutenant, "Colonel" Edward M. House, who had been at his side since he entered the White House. His relations with the Republican leaders in Congress were frosty and he did not endear himself to the Allied leaders at the Paris peace conference. He suffered depression following the death of his first wife and by the time of the Paris conference had an almost Messianic view of himself. By the time he set sail for Europe, he was already exhausted both physically and mentally. He spent his last years believing that what he stood for would come about. "You can't fight God!", he told visitors. He died with his dreams unfulfilled.

American astrophysicist (1936–)

Wilson studied initially at Rice University in his native city of Houston, where he gained his BA in physics in 1957; he went on to obtain his PhD from the California Institute of Technology in 1962. He joined the Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, New Jersey, in 1963 and served as head of the radiophysics research department from 1976 to 1990.

It was at the Bell Laboratories that he and his coworker Arno Penzias found the first evidence in 1964 of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is now widely interpreted as being the remnant radiation from the ‘big bang’ creation of the universe several billion years ago. The two men were jointly honored with the 1978 Nobel Prize for physics, which they shared with Pyotr L. Kapitza for his (unrelated) discoveries in low-temperature physics.

Wilson is continuing his astrophysics work with Penzias, looking for interstellar molecules and determining the relative abundances of interstellar isotopes.

(1856–1924), scholar, president of Princeton University, governor of New Jersey, twenty‐eighth president of the United States

The son of a Presbyterian minister, Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, grew up in Georgia and South Carolina, graduated from Princeton University, attended the University of Virginia law school, and earned a Ph.D. in history and political science from the Johns Hopkins University (1885). He was a professor at Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan and Princeton universities, and in 1902 he became president of Princeton, serving until 1910, when he was elected governor of New Jersey. In 1912, he secured the Democratic nomination for the presidency, was elected, and served two terms.

As president, Wilson was often accused by his political enemies of being cowardly and pacifistic, but he used armed force in support of diplomatic goals seven times between April 1914 and November 1918—more often than any other president. Most historians recognize that he had a sophisticated understanding of the value and limitations of force in international relations, and that he was an effective commander in chief.

Wilson thought that the United States must take an active part in promoting the worldwide spread of democratic ideals, international law, and the cooperation of peaceloving nations. He preferred to achieve these goals through diplomacy and moral persuasion, but he did not shrink from the use of military force. He believed that the president must absolutely control foreign policy, including the decision to use or refrain from using armed force, but he also believed that policymakers should not meddle in military operations once they had begun, just as military commanders should not dictate policy.

Wilson's first uses of force were in Latin America, a region traditionally viewed by the United States as within its sphere of influence. In April 1914, he authorized the occupation of Veracruz, Mexico, to avenge an insult to some American sailors and to pressure the Mexican dictator into resigning. He refused to allow the expansion of intervention beyond this one city, however, and relied mainly on negotiations to achieve his aims. Two years later, he authorized a punitive expedition into Mexico in search of border raiders but again entrusted his main objective—restraining the Mexican Revolution—to negotiators rather than soldiers. Other U.S. military involvement, in Haiti in 1914 and the Dominican Republic in 1915, was limited to the minimum force necessary to establish order while American occupiers tried to develop local support for democratic self‐government.

When World War I began in August 1914, Wilson at first shared the feeling of most Americans that neutrality was the proper policy for the United States. He also hoped, by keeping America neutral, to have an opportunity to mediate the conflict. He opposed expansion of the army and navy and employed his diplomatic skills to maximize American trade. In 1915 and 1916, he sent his friend Edward M. House to Europe to promote peace talks.

The beginning of German submarine warfare early in 1915 undermined the president's optimism, and that autumn he came out for enlarging the army and navy. In May 1916, he suggested that the United States might join a postwar association of nations dedicated to collective security. That autumn, after his reelection, he launched a new peace effort in Europe, and upon its failure, proposed his own peace terms in the “Peace Without Victory” speech on 22 January 1917. This initiative also failed when the Germans announced unrestricted submarine warfare.

Wilson severed diplomatic relations with Germany on 3 February 1917, but before seeking a declaration of war he first explored armed neutrality. On 2 April, he at last asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany, justifying the request as a defense of neutral rights and, more important, as an opportunity for the United States to defeat autocracy and mold a peace based on democracy and collective security.

After Congress declared war on 6 April, Wilson named Gen. John J. Pershing commander of the American Expeditionary Force to be sent to France, and gave him full authority to decide when, where, and how American troops were to be used. Likewise, the president gave his full backing to the plans of Adm. William S. Sims to concentrate virtually the whole naval effort on developing a convoy system to defeat the German submarine threat. To coordinate U.S. military policy with that of the British and French, he appointed Edward House and the retiring chief of staff of the army, Gen. Tasker H. Bliss, to sit on a permanent inter‐Allied conference. House and Bliss understood that their role was to smooth differences with the Allies and to give U.S. military commanders maximum freedom within the coalition.

In April 1917, German leaders were confident that American armies would arrive too late to affect the outcome of the conflict. They were wrong. Within a year the United States had mobilized and transported a large army of fresh troops to Europe in time to help deal the decisive blow. That achievement was partly a testimony to Wilson's decision to let his commanders do their jobs without political interference, but even more it was proof of the enormous productivity of the American economy.

Wilson was keenly aware that victory in the war depended upon the maintenance of solidarity among the Allies. To promote unity, he agreed to the creation of an Inter‐Allied Supreme War Council to coordinate military policy, and to the appointment of French Gen. Ferdinand Foch as supreme military commander over all Allied forces. He also agreed to allow expeditions of American soldiers to take part in Allied forces that landed at Murmansk, Archangel, and Vladivostok. At first, they were intended to help keep Russia in the war, then to protect Allied military supplies from German seizure after the Bolsheviks made a separate peace with Germany, and to support the withdrawal of Czech prisoners of war for assignment to the western front. Although hostile to the Bolsheviks, Wilson was skeptical of this intervention because he believed it would arouse Russian hostility. He eventually yielded to maintain Allied solidarity and to restrain the ambitions of the other Allies, who seemed interested in territory (Japan) or counterrevolution (Britain and France).

By October 1918, German leaders realized that they had catastrophically underestimated the importance of American intervention. Faced with imminent defeat, they suggested to President Wilson an armistice on the basis of his “Fourteen Points” speech of 8 January 1918. Wilson used the German overture to force the Allies and General Per shing to agree that the Fourteen Points would be the basis for a cease‐fire and the starting point for negotiation of the peace treaty. Thus by November 1918, when the armistice was signed, it appeared that Wilson had been remarkably successful in using American military power not only to force his peace program on the enemy but to impose it on the Allies as well. Only later, after the guns fell silent, would many of his hard‐won gains slip away.

Wilson led the American delegation to the peace talks in Paris in the spring of 1919 and submitted the resulting Treaty of Versailles to the U.S. Senate in July. But the Senate rejected it, and the president, crippled by a stroke that October, served out the last years of his term an embittered invalid isolated in the White House.

[See also Caribbean and Latin America, U.S. Military Involvement in the; Commander in Chief, President as; Mexican Revolution, U.S. Military Involvement in the; World War I: Military and Diplomatic Course; World War I: Postwar Impact.]

Bibliography

• Arthur S. Link, Wilson, 5 vols., 1947–65.
• Robert H. Ferrell, Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917–1921, 1985.
• Frederick S. Calhoun, Power and Principle: Armed Intervention in Wilsonian Foreign Policy, 1986.
• Arthur S. Link and John Whiteclay Chambers II, Woodrow Wilson as Commander in Chief, in The United States Military Under the Constitution of the United States, 1789–1989, ed. Richard H. Kohn, 1991.
• Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order, 1992.
• Kendrick A. Clements, The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, 1992

Wilson, Woodrow (1856-1924) U.S. president. Born in Staunton, Virginia, Woodrow Wilson grew up in a South devastated by the Civil War. He graduated from Princeton and began a distinguished career of public service that included president of Princeton, governor of New Jersey, and finally president of the United States in 1912. Though reelected in 1916 with a slogan “He kept us out of war, ” Wilson did try to influence the political situation in Mexico by occupying Veracruz in 1914, and sent John J. Pershing into that country two years later to chase Pancho Villa. Wilson also could not keep the nation out of World War I forever, and after the provocations of submarine attacks sinking American ships and the Zimmerman Telegram, Wilson declared “the world must be made safe for democracy” and got a Congressional declaration of war in April 1917. He exerted vigorous leadership at home, setting up Selective Service and establishing government agencies to support the war effort, and developed his famous Fourteen Points as a framework for the peace. He instructed John J. Pershing to resist amalgamation of the American Expeditionary Forces in France to strengthen the United States' position at a final settlement. American forces did not display any special brilliance on the battlefield, but their timely mass arrival in 1918 restored Allied morale and broke that of the Germans. Wilson was frustrated by his dealings with the Allies at the Paris Peace Conference, and the unsuccessful struggle to get U.S. Senate support for a League of Nations broke his health. He stayed in Washington preaching America's global mission until his death.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), twenty-eighth president of the United States, led the country into World War I and was a primary architect of the League of Nations.

Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Va., on Dec. 28, 1856. His father, a Presbyterian minister, communicated his moral austerity to his son, resulting in an inflexibility that sometimes revealed itself. Wilson attended Davison University in North Carolina for a brief time but graduated from Princeton in 1879. In his senior year he published an important essay in the International Review, revealing his early interest in American government. He studied law briefly and, though he did not complete the course, practiced for a time in Atlanta, Ga., without much success. He pursued graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, receiving his doctorate in 1886.

In his doctoral thesis Wilson analyzed the American political system, pointing to the fracturing of power that flowed from the committee system in Congress. This thesis foreshadowed his intense belief in the role of the presidency as the only national office and in the duty of the president to lead the nation. He was to put these views into practice when he occupied the White House.

From 1886 to 1910 Wilson was in academic life - as a professor of political science at Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan, and Princeton and, after 1902, president of Princeton. A magnificent teacher, Wilson was a strong and imaginative college executive. His establishment of the preceptorial system at Princeton was an important contribution to university education that emphasized intimacy between teacher and student. He also fought for democracy in education.

Governor of New Jersey

By 1910 Wilson had established a wide reputation but had also aroused many enmities at Princeton. Thus he was ready to accept when, in 1910, the Democratic party in New Jersey offered him the nomination for governor. He was elected by a large plurality.

As governor, Wilson demonstrated masterly leadership, pushing through the legislature a direct primary law, a corrupt-practices act, an employers' liability act, and a law regulating the public utilities. His success made him a prominent candidate for the presidency in 1912. He was nominated, after a long convention battle, and easily elected in November. At the same time the Democratic party secured a substantial majority in both houses of Congress.

First Term as President

Once elected, Wilson proceeded to put into practice his theory of presidential leadership. In the first 2 years of his presidency he dominated Congress and secured legislation of long-term historical significance. The tariff was revised downward, initiating a policy which was to be of substantial importance later. The Federal Reserve Act created a banking system under governmental control. The Federal Trade Commission Act, directed against monopoly, created a body which has had an important role in preventing overwhelming concentration of power in industry.

Wilson from the beginning confronted difficult questions of foreign policy. In Mexico a revolution was taking place, but just before Wilson's inauguration a military dictator, Victoriano Huerta, seized the presidency. Wilson refused to recognize Huerta, setting a course sympathetic with the struggle of the Mexican masses for social reform. He prevented Huerta from consolidating power, and in 1914 he ordered the occupation of Veracruz to prevent the dictator from receiving arms from abroad. He was saved from the possibility of war by the proffered mediation of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile; and Huerta was overthrown. But the Mexican question continued causing trouble.

Beginning of World War I

In August 1914 World War I broke out in Europe. The basis of Wilson's policy was the preservation of neutrality. But there can be little doubt that in his heart he sympathized with France and Great Britain and feared the victory of imperial Germany. The warring powers soon began interfering with American trade. The British more and more restricted American commerce, but the Germans proclaimed a new kind of warfare, submarine warfare, with the prospect of American ships being sunk and their passengers and crew being lost. Wilson took German policies more seriously, not only because of his innate partiality for the British, but because German policies involved the destruction of human life, whereas the British interfered only with trade. As early as February 1915, in response to a German declaration instituting the U-boat war, the President declared that Germany would be held to "strict accountability" for the loss of American lives.

For a time thereafter Wilson took no action. But on May 7, 1915, the liner Lusitania was sunk, with over a hundred American lives lost. The President addressed a stiff note to Germany but clung to the hope that the war might be ended by the good offices of the United States. He engaged in a debate with Berlin and, after other painful submarine episodes, got Germany to abandon the U-boat war in 1916.

Wilson then addressed himself to Great Britain but made little headway. In the meantime the presidential campaign of 1916 was approaching. He was renominated virtually by acclamation; the Democratic platform praised him for keeping the country out of war. He won in a very close campaign. It is important to note that though the President profited from his stand in preserving peace, and though the Democratic politicians made the most of the slogan "He kept us out of war," Wilson promised nothing for the future.

Second Term as President

Wilson's efforts to bring the belligerents together were ineffectual. When the German government cast the die for unlimited warfare on the sea, Wilson severed diplomatic relations with Berlin but continued to hope that a direct challenge could be avoided. No president has ever taken more seriously the immense responsibility of leading the American people into war. But on April 2, 1917, Wilson demanded a declaration of war against Germany from Congress, and Congress responded by overwhelming majorities.

There is every reason to regard Wilson as a great war president. He put politics aside, appointing a professional soldier to head American forces in Europe. Fully as important, he appealed to American idealism in a striking way. Though he believed that the defeat of Germany was necessary, he held out hope that at the end of the war a League of Nations might be established which would make impossible the recurrence of another bloody struggle. As early as April 1916 he had begun to formulate his views on this. He advocated an association of nations which would act together against any nation which broke the peace. There was much support for his point of view.

Fourteen Points

Throughout the war Wilson insisted on two things: the defeat of German militarism and the establishment of peace resting on just principles. In January 1918 he gave his speech of the Fourteen Points. In the negotiations that autumn he made the acceptance of these points the primary condition on the part of his European associates and of the Germans as well. Wilson was at the apogee of his career in November 1918, when the armistice was signed. No American president had ever attained so high a position in world esteem, and millions looked to him as the prophet of a new order.

But difficulties loomed. The 1918 elections returned a Republican majority to Congress. The President himself stimulated partisanship by his appeal to elect a Democratic legislature. Though he selected able men for his delegation to the forthcoming peace conference at Paris, he did not think of conciliating the Republican opposition. By insisting on going to Paris in person and remaining there until the treaty was finished, he cut himself off from American opinion.

Versailles and the League Covenant

At the peace conference Wilson strove to realize his ideals. He was able to win the negotiating powers' consent for drafting the Covenant of the League of Nations. This provided for a League Council of the five Great Powers and four elective members and for an Assembly in which every member state would have a vote. The signatories bound themselves to submit disputes to either arbitration or conciliation through the Council. If they failed to do this, they would be subjected to economic and possibly to military sanctions. They were also to agree to respect and preserve the territorial integrity and political independence of the members of the League.

Wilson fought also for what he conceived to be a just peace. On territorial questions he strove to apply the principle of nationality; he fought successfully against French ambitions to detach the Rhineland from Germany and against the Italian desire for Dalmatia, a province peopled by Yugoslavs. Many of the new boundaries of Europe were to be determined by plebiscite. At times, however, the principle of nationality was violated. On the question of reparations Wilson was unsuccessful in limiting German payments in amount and time, and he accepted a formula which was subject to grave criticism. In the Orient, much against his will, he was compelled to recognize the claims of Japan (which had in 1914 entered the war on the side of the Allies) to economic control of the Chinese province of Shantung (formerly in the hands of Germany).

The Treaty of Versailles was not to stand the test of time. In detaching substantial territories from Germany and in fixing Germany with responsibility for the war, it furnished the basis for that German nationalism which was to come to full flower with Adolf Hitler.

Wilson returned to the United States with a political battle ahead. There was much partisanship in the opposition to him but also a genuine dislike of the Treaty of Versailles and honest opposition to "entanglement" in world politics. He erred in demanding ratification of the treaty without modification. He made his appeal in a countrywide tour. He was hailed by tremendous crowds and greeted with immense enthusiasm, but his health gave way, and he was compelled to go back to the White House. A stroke temporarily incapacitated him.

The Senate in November rejected unconditional ratification but adopted the treaty with reservations which the President refused to accept. In January a compromise was attempted. But Wilson spoiled these efforts by taking the issue into the 1920 presidential campaign. That campaign resulted in an overwhelming Republican victory and the election of Warren G. Harding as president. The new chief executive never sought to bring the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate or to bring the United States into the League, which was by now actually in existence. Wilson's presidency ended in a stunning defeat.

Evaluation of Wilson's Policies

Despite his failure to secure American adherence to the League, the long-run judgment on the President must be that he was one of the few great presidents of the United States. In his first term he exerted a presidential leadership that has rarely been equaled and won legislation of far-reaching importance. In his policy toward Germany he faithfully interpreted the majority opinion of the nation, neither rushing passionately into war at the possible cost of national unity nor hesitating to face the issue once it seemed clear. He was a war leader of the first magnitude. In his campaign for a world order, moreover, he has lasting significance. He bequeathed to his generation, and that which followed, a passionate faith in the possibility of such an order.

The Charter of the United Nations reflects in no small degree Woodrow Wilson's aspirations. Whether such an order as he dreamed will ever eventuate in fact is a question that must be left to the prophets. But if a day comes when men seek the means of settling their disputes in international organization, the failure of Woodrow Wilson will appear a transitory thing, and his idealism and his vision will receive their due praise from posterity.

Wilson was twice married. His first wife bore him three daughters. She died in the White House shortly after the outbreak of World War I. In 1916 he married Edith Bolling Galt, who survived him by many years. He died on Feb. 3, 1924.

Further Reading

The foremost biographer of Wilson is Arthur S. Link, whose still uncompleted definitive work, Wilson (5 vols., 1947-1965), takes Wilson's life up to 1917; Link's work is a monumental, detailed record of Wilson's times. The biography by Arthur Walworth, Woodrow Wilson (2 vols., 1958; 2d rev. ed., 2 vols. in 1, 1964), presents a fine understanding of Wilson the man. Henry Wilkinson Bragdon, Woodrow Wilson: The Academic Years (1967), describes Wilson's years as writer, teacher, and scholar, and George C. Osborn, Woodrow Wilson: The Early Years (1968), relates his prepolitical years generally.

A critical study of Wilson is John M. Blum, Woodrow Wilson and the Politics of Morality (1956). Other biographies include William Allen White, Woodrow Wilson (1924); H. Hale Bellot, Woodrow Wilson (1955); John A. Garraty, Woodrow Wilson: A Great Life in Brief (1956); and Silas Bent McKinley, Woodrow Wilson (1957). See also Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, The Woodrow Wilsons (1937). A synoptic view of Wilson's personality emerges from Arthur S. Link, ed., Woodrow Wilson: A Profile (1968), an anthology by persons who knew Wilson or who assessed his impact during their lifetimes. The papers of Wilson's confidant, Edward Mandell House, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, arranged by Charles Seymour (4 vols., 1926-1928), provide intimate glimpses of Wilson.

Specialized studies include excellent works by Thomas A. Bailey dealing with the peace treaty and the struggle that followed, Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace (1944) and Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal (1945); Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917 (1954) and Wilson the Diplomatist (1957); the well-documented study of Wilson's relations with Congress during World War I by Seward W. Livermore, Politics Is Adjourned: Woodrow Wilson and the War Congress, 1916-1918 (1966); and Norman Gordon Levin, Jr., Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America's Response to War and Revolution (1968). The elections of 1912 and 1916 are covered in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., History of American Presidential Elections (4 vols., 1971).

(1856-1924) Began his career as a university politics teacher; President of Princeton University, 1902-10, Governor of New Jersey, 1910-12, and President of the United States, 1913-21. As President he first distinguished himself by presiding over an impressive programme of domestic reform legislation. After re-election 1916 he led the United States into the First World War and was one of the main architects of the peace settlement negotiated in Paris. For Wilson the creation of machinery to preserve international peace was an essential part of that settlement, but he suffered a humiliating personal and political defeat when the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, thereby ensuring that the United States would not participate in the League of Nations.

Wilson was something of a rarity in that he began his career as an academic student of politics, attained considerable distinction in that field, and then had the opportunity to put into practice at the highest level some of his theoretical musings. In his early writings Wilson was severely critical of the US Constitution and bemoaned the lack of opportunities for effective national leadership in the American political system. Congressional Government, first published in 1885, was trenchantly critical of Congress and bleakly pessimistic about the possibility of real leadership from the White House. This work remains to this day a constantly cited classic critique of Congress. Constitutional Government in the United States, published in 1908, had a distinctly more optimistic tone with Wilson now encouraged by the entrance of the United States on to the world stage and the example of Theodore Roosevelt's Presidency to believe that strong leadership by the chief executive was, after all, possible. Through his writings, his role as an opinion leader at the turn of the century, and his actions as President Wilson may be seen as one of the founders of the modern Presidency.

— David Mervin

For more information on Thomas Woodrow Wilson, visit Britannica.com.

• Born: Dec. 28, 1856, Staunton, Va.
• Political party: Democrat
• Education: Davidson College, 1876; College of New Jersey (Princeton), B.A., 1879; University of Virginia Law School, 1880; Johns Hopkins University, Ph.D., 1886
• Military service: none
• Previous government service: governor of New Jersey, 1911–12
• Elected President, 1912; served, 1913–21
• Died: Feb. 3, 1924, Washington, D.C.

Woodrow Wilson was the only Democratic President elected between 1896, when William Jennings Bryan was defeated, and 1932, when Franklin Roosevelt was elected. Wilson was a political scientist who once wrote, “The President is at liberty, both in law and in conscience, to be as big a man as he can.” Wilson's Presidency demonstrated the validity of his observation: His two terms were characterized by successes in instituting a progressive domestic program. His foreign policies were marked by victory in World War I and military interventions in several nations.

Wilson was born in Virginia and lived in Georgia and the Carolinas during the Civil War. His father's church was used as a temporary hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers. After attending Davidson College for a year to study for the ministry, he withdrew for health reasons and later went to the College of New Jersey (Princeton), where he distinguished himself as a debater. After graduating in 1879 he studied law at the University of Virginia and practiced briefly and without much success in Atlanta before deciding to study history and political science at Johns Hopkins University. His doctoral dissertation, which became a highly regarded book, Congressional Government, analyzed the weakness of the Presidency and the strength of the standing committees in Congress. (Wilson is the only President ever to earn a doctorate and the only one who was a political scientist.)

Wilson embarked on a career as a college professor, teaching briefly at Bryn Mawr College (newly established to teach women) and Wesleyan University (where he also served as football coach) before returning to Princeton in 1890 as a professor of jurisprudence and political economy. He published a five-volume History of the American People. In 1902 Wilson became president of Princeton.

Wilson soon gained a national reputation for his innovative educational reforms at Princeton, which were designed to emphasize academics and de-emphasize its elitism. In 1908 he published Constitutional Government in the United States, in which he described the growth of Presidential power in Theodore Roosevelt's administration.

Two years later Democratic political bosses in New Jersey, seeking a candidate with a reputation for honesty and incorruptibility, visited Wilson at Princeton and offered him the party's nomination for governor. Wilson accepted and won the election. He broke with the party bosses who had supported him so he could establish a reputation as his own man rather than a follower of the bosses. Instead, he backed reform laws to provide for direct primaries for nominations (taking the nominating power away from the bosses), an ethics law for elected government officials, workmen's compensation, a pure food law, and a commission to regulate such public utilities as electricity.

In 1912 Wilson was a contender, although not the favorite, for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He won the nomination on the 46th ballot, defeating the favorite, House Speaker Champ Clark.

With the Republicans split, Wilson was able to win the Presidency with 42 percent of the popular vote, defeating Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. The Democrats retained Democratic control of the House and won a six-seat margin in the Senate.

Wilson capped his meteoric rise to the White House by demonstrating energetic leadership and domination of Congress. He influenced the roster of committee members so that supporters of his New Freedom program served on key committees. He imposed party discipline on congressional Democrats, who bound themselves to vote for measures put forward by their President. He broke precedent by giving an address to a special session of Congress called in April 1913, instead of sending the legislature a written annual message, as every President since Thomas Jefferson had done. He held regular news conferences and made every effort to rally public opinion around his legislative proposals.

Wilson won passage of a large number of progressive measures. The Underwood Tariff of 1913 lowered the duties on imported manufactured goods, which benefited consumers. The tariff act also contained a provision for the first income tax limited to wealthy individuals. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 reorganized the banking system in order to prevent the sort of financial instability that caused panics and depressions. The Federal Trade Commission was established in 1914 to end unfair trade practices. The Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 provided new legal weapons against monopolies (companies that eliminated competition and thus raised prices) while recognizing the rights of workers to organize in labor unions and engage in strikes. In 1916 Wilson got Congress to approve federal land banks to provide low-interest loans to farmers, workmen's compensation for injuries received on the job, an eight-hour day for railroad workers, and laws prohibiting child labor. However, Wilson also promoted racial segregation in government departments in the capital.

In foreign affairs Wilson pursued an interventionist policy against small nations. In 1914 he ordered the military to seize the port of Veracruz, Mexico, to prevent a shipment of German weapons from reaching the revolutionary government of Victoriano Huerta. The crisis ended after European mediators succeeded in getting Huerta to resign. In 1915 the United States occupied the Caribbean islands of Haiti and Santo Domingo and took control of their financial affairs in order to pay back banks that had loaned money to these nations. In 1916 Wilson sent General John J. Pershing into Mexico with orders to pursue the guerrilla leader Pancho Villa, who had crossed into U.S. territory and killed 19 Americans. But Pershing's expedition was unsuccessful, and after several clashes with Mexican troops it was withdrawn early in 1917.

In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, Wilson issued a Neutrality Proclamation that stated that the United States would not take sides in the conflict. But Germany's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare caused Wilson to protest and eventually to tilt U.S. policy toward Great Britain and France. Although the British also interfered with U.S. shipping, only the German action resulted in the loss of American lives. On May 17, 1915, the Germans sank a British ocean liner, the Lusitania, resulting in the loss of 1,198 lives, among them 128 Americans. Early in 1916 Germany announced it was ending its submarine warfare, and Wilson then campaigned for reelection on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” Wilson won a close election against Republican Charles Evans Hughes, receiving 52 percent of the popular vote.

In December 1916 Germany announced its willingness to negotiate an end to the war. Wilson then called for a peace conference and on January 22, 1917, outlined his ideas for “peace without victory” in Europe. But nine days later, as if in answer, the Germans torpedoed Wilson's initiative by announcing a resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. On February 3, 1917, Wilson broke diplomatic relations with Germany. Wilson armed U.S. merchant ships on March 5. On March 18 the Germans sank three U.S. merchant vessels, and on April 6 Congress granted Wilson's request for a declaration of war against Germany. The U.S. expeditionary force under General Pershing broke the long stalemate at the Second Battle of the Marne. (Other troops entered Russia on the side of the anticommunist White Russians fighting the Bolsheviks, and they remained until 1920.)

As the Allied victory drew near, Wilson announced his Fourteen Points, a set of principles to guide the victors, in an address to Congress on January 8, 1918. He proposed a system of open diplomacy without state secrets, freedom of the seas, arms reductions, and a “general association of nations” to guarantee all nations their independence and secure borders.

Germany acknowledged its defeat and signed an armistice on November 11, 1918. Meanwhile, Wilson had campaigned for Democratic candidates in the 1918 midterm elections on the basis of his peace proposals, making them a partisan issue. He thus sacrificed the possibility that Republicans would support his plans. Republicans took control of both houses of Congress.

In December 1918 Wilson sailed for the peace negotiations in Paris. He excluded Republican legislators from his delegation, which was a departure from the traditional practice of bipartisan foreign policy. The European allies had already decided to reward themselves with territories and reparations (financial compensation from their defeated enemies), and Wilson was forced to give up most of his Fourteen Points. Nevertheless, he returned with a draft covenant, or constitution, for a League of Nations, which was included in the Treaty of Versailles that the Allies signed on June 28, 1919.

Wilson submitted the treaty to the Republican-controlled Senate for its advice and consent. Some Republican progressives turned isolationist and were prepared to vote against any treaty at all. Other Republicans, led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, would accept a treaty only if it placed strict limitations on the power of the President to commit the United States to peacekeeping duties under Article X of the League of Nations covenant.

Wilson refused to make any concessions. He crossed the nation on a speaking tour in support of the league. On September 25, 1919, in Pueblo, Colorado, he collapsed. He was brought back to Washington, where he suffered a stroke on October 2. For two months Wilson was totally incapacitated. For the remainder of his term, though he understood fully what was happening around him, he was unable to do more than listen, dictate letters, talk for a few minutes, and scrawl his signature. He did not sign acts of Congress, which became laws without his signature. For four months his cabinet did not meet; for another four it met without him. Cabinet secretaries were unable to discuss government business with him. His wife and the White House physician controlled all access to him. When Secretary of State Robert Lansing inquired if the President was so disabled he should resign, they vigorously denied it. No one in government wanted Vice President Thomas Marshall, whom they considered incompetent, to take over.

Paralyzed and totally dependent on his wife as his link to the outside world, Wilson was in no position to control the outcome of the struggle for the Treaty of Versailles. The Senate approved it with a series of “reservations” sponsored by Senator Lodge. Wilson called on his supporters to vote against that version of the treaty. In November, a coalition of Republicans who opposed any version of the treaty and Democrats defeated Lodge's version. (In 1921, by a simple resolution, Congress declared the war with Germany over.)

Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1920, but that prize was small consolation for his political defeat. After his retirement from office, he remained in Washington, D.C., but he was too ill to take part in public affairs. On Armistice Day, 1923, he made his last public speech, in which he foretold eventual U.S. participation in the League of Nations. “I have seen fools resist Providence before,” he warned. “That we shall prevail is as sure as God reigns.” He died in Washington on February 3, 1924. The United States never joined the League of Nations, though Wilson's goal was ultimately realized when the country took the lead in creating the United Nations at the end of World War II.

See also Checks and balances; Disability, Presidential; Health, Presidential; Marshall, Thomas; New Freedom; Roosevelt, Theodore; State of the Union address; Taft, William Howard; Treaty of Versailles; Treaty powers

Sources

• N. Gordon Levin, Woodrow Wilson and World Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910–1917 (New York: Harper & Row, 1954). Gene Smith, When the Cheering Stopped: The Last Years of Woodrow Wilson (New York: Morrow, 1964)

(1856-1924), twenty-eighth president of the United States and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1919). Born in Staunton, Virginia, Wilson received the Ph.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1886. As a college professor, he was one of the founders of the discipline of political science in the United States and made significant contributions to the fields of comparative government and administration. Several texts he wrote are regarded as classics. He was also a prolific academic and popular historian. As president of Princeton, he transformed a venerable college into a world-class university, but conflicts over the reorganization of the social life of undergraduates and control of the graduate school caused him to resign in October 1910.

Meanwhile, Wilson had accepted the Democratic nomination for governor of New Jersey. After his election in November 1910, he pushed through measures that put the state in the forefront of progressive reform. This success catapulted him into national prominence and led to his election as president on the Democratic ticket in 1912.

Wilson transformed the presidency into the institution we know today by his strong leadership in foreign affairs, his command of public opinion, and his leadership of his party in Congress. Under his aegis, Congress from 1913 to 1916 enacted the most coherent, constructive, and comprehensive program to that time. It included measures for banking reorganization and control through the Federal Reserve System, tariff reduction, federal oversight of business, support of labor organizations, and federal aid to education and agriculture. In foreign affairs during his first term, Wilson acted most notably as an anti-imperialist and advocate of human rights. He defended and protected the Mexican Revolution begun in 1910, sought to protect the infant Chinese republic against Japanese aggression, and brought home rule to the Philippine Islands and Puerto Rico.

Wilson viewed the outbreak of war in 1914 as the result of European imperialistic rivalries and arms races and sought to protect American neutrality against both British and German violations of American rights on the high seas. His efforts to end the war through mediation failed, and, in April 1917, he asked Congress to declare war against Germany after it began all-out submarine war against American shipping.

Wilson mobilized the nation for total war for the first time in its history, with great success. American soldiers in France turned the tide and enabled the Allied and Associated powers to bring the war to an end on November 11, 1918. Wilson led the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, which negotiated the Treaty of Versailles. His most notable accomplishment at Paris was to secure the incorporation of the Covenant of the League of Nations into the treaty with Germany.

But many Americans were not prepared to undertake such international obligations as the Covenant required. A healthy Wilson would undoubtedly have found common ground with the moderate Republicans in the Senate who had reservations about the League and would have achieved ratification of the treaty by the autumn of 1919. The president, however, after making a national speaking tour on behalf of the League, suffered a severe stroke on October 2, which paralyzed his left side and caused severe brain damage, leaving him unable to view the political situation realistically. He thus twice prevented Democrats in the Senate from making the treaty's ratification possible. After his term expired Wilson lived in retirement in Washington with his wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, until his death in 1924.

Bibliography:

Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters, 8 vols. (1927-1939); Kendrick A. Clements, Woodrow Wilson: World Statesman (1987); Arthur S. Link, Wilson, 5 vols. (1947-1964).

Author:

Arthur S. Link

See also Elections: 1912 , 1916; Progressivism. For events during Wilson's administration, see Antitrust Movement; Expansion, Continental and Overseas; Federal Trade Commission; Fourteen Points; Germany-U.S. Relations; Mexico-U.S. Relations; Middle East-U.S. Relations; New Freedom; Philippines; Prohibition and Temperance; Puerto Rico; Versailles Treaty and League of Nations; Volstead Act; World War I.

(Thomas Woodrow Wilson), 1856–1924, 28th President of the United States (1913–21), b. Staunton, Va.

Educator

He graduated from Princeton in 1879 and studied law at the Univ. of Virginia. Admitted (1882) to the bar, he practiced in Atlanta, Ga., for a year before going to Johns Hopkins to study political science and jurisprudence. In 1885, he published Congressional Government, a significant work. After receiving (1886) his Ph.D. degree, he taught history and political economy at Bryn Mawr (1885–88) and Wesleyan Univ. (1888–90).

In 1890 he became professor of jurisprudence and political economy at Princeton and gained a reputation for his eloquent orations. Popular with the student body, Wilson, a descendant of Presbyterian ministers on both sides of his family, was elected (1902) president of Princeton, becoming its first nonclerical head. He strove to raise academic standards, reorganized the curriculum, and introduced the preceptorial system of instruction, which provided for more individualized education.

His attempt to change the social and living facilities by eliminating the elite eating clubs for upperclassmen and introducing the quadrangle system, where students from all of the classes would live and eat together, was less successful. It aroused great hostility, which reached a climax in his bitter struggle with the group headed by Dean Andrew F. West. Wilson lost, but with prompting from George B. M. Harvey, a New York publisher with strong connections in the Democratic party, he ran for governor of New Jersey in 1910 soon after resigning his post at Princeton.

Governor of New Jersey

With the aid of the New Jersey Democratic machine, Wilson secured the gubernatorial nomination and, breaking with the machine to espouse progressive policies, went on to win the election. Despite much resistance from the regular Democrats, Wilson forced through the New Jersey legislature such reforms as an employer's liability act, the direct primary, a corrupt-practices act, and revitalization of the state public utilities commission.

Presidency

Wilson's gubernatorial record brought him to the forefront of national politics. Although Champ Clark was the leading contender for the presidential nomination at the Democratic convention in 1912, he could not muster the necessary two-thirds vote, and after he had exhausted his strength, Wilson won on the 46th ballot. He was helped by the switch to his side of William Jennings Bryan (prompted by Edward M. House). The split in the Republican party, which divided into the regular Republicans supporting William Howard Taft and the Progressive party backing Theodore Roosevelt, gained the election for Wilson, who captured 435 electoral votes.

Domestic Policy

Wilson revived the custom, abandoned in 1801, of addressing Congress in person and immediately called for a series of reforms, which he had called the “New Freedom” in his presidential campaign. During his administration the tariff was drastically decreased (1913; see Underwood, Oscar Wilder); the Federal Reserve System was instituted (1913); the La Follette Seamen's Act, regulating labor conditions aboard ship, became law (1915); the Adamson Act, establishing an eight-hour day for railroad employees, was enacted (1916); and the Federal Farm Loan Act, providing for loans to cooperative farm associations, was passed (1916). Wilson continued the policy of curbing monopoly by creating (1914) the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and expose unfair practices of corporations, pushed the passage (1914) of the Clayton Antitrust Act, and instituted antitrust proceedings in 92 cases. The Seventeenth Amendment, providing for the direct popular election of U.S. Senators, the Eighteenth Amendment, which instituted prohibition, and the Nineteenth Amendment, by which women received the vote, were all launched while Wilson was President.

Foreign Policy

In foreign affairs the Wilson administration was faced with mounting difficulties. In Mexico, a revolution brought (Feb., 1913) Victoriano Huerta to the presidency. Wilson refused to recognize Huerta on the grounds that he had gained power by assassinating his predecessor, and instead resorted to a policy of “watchful waiting.” In 1914, this policy ended when U.S. marines landed in Veracruz in retaliation for the arrest of U.S. sailors in Tampico. Mediation by Argentina, Brazil, and Chile prevented war but failed to settle the aggravated situation. After Huerta was driven from power, new troubles arose from the internal situation in Mexico. The raid of Francisco (“Pancho”) Villa across the U.S. border resulted in the punitive expedition (1916) into Mexico led by John J. Pershing. Border incidents continued, and relations between the two countries remained unfriendly. During this period, Wilson also sent U.S. troops to Haiti (1915), the Dominican Republic (1916), and Cuba (1917), and established protectorates over the first two. In his East Asian policy, notably his refusal (1913) to support loans to China by American bankers, Wilson openly rejected “dollar diplomacy.”

World War I

The outbreak of World War I in Europe overshadowed all other problems. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, who scrupulously favored neutrality, resigned (1915) and was succeeded by Robert Lansing, who tended to favor intervention on the side of the Allies. Wilson during his first term nevertheless sought by all diplomatic means to maintain an impartial neutrality. American public opinion, however, increasingly mounted against Germany, and the sinking (May 7, 1915) of the Lusitania by a German submarine aroused a storm of protest. After the sinking (Mar. 24, 1916) of the American vessel Sussex, Wilson issued an ultimatum to which Germany responded with a pledge to cease its unrestricted submarine attacks. Trouble over shipping also occurred with Great Britain in its effort to enforce the blockade of Germany. In the 1916 election, the Democratic campaign slogan, “He kept us out of war,” helped return Wilson to the White House; Charles Evans Hughes was defeated by a very close margin. Wilson immediately attempted to mediate between the warring nations, but without success. Relations with Germany became more and more tense, especially after the announcement (Jan. 31, 1917) by Germany of a renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare.

On Feb. 3, Wilson broke diplomatic relations with Germany. Several more U.S. vessels were sunk, and on Apr. 2, 1917, Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany. In his war message Wilson stated that “the world must be made safe for democracy” and that the United States would wage war for liberty and peace. War was declared Apr. 6. Wilson's speeches, elaborating his war aims, did much to consolidate U.S. opinion behind his policies as the country mobilized. In addition to the establishment of a fighting force, war industries were placed under government control and the President was given wide powers over the production and distribution of food and fuel. Late in Dec., 1917, Wilson put the railroads under government operation. The Committee on Public Information was established to propagandize for the war.

The Fourteen Points and the Peace Conference

In Jan., 1918, prompted by the publication by the Bolshevik revolutionary government in Russia of secret treaties that revealed the imperialistic war aims of the Allies, Wilson presented the Fourteen Points to Congress; these outlined the basic provisions that he believed the peace settlement must cover. As the war drew to a close and preparations were begun for a peace conference, Wilson was generally looked upon in Europe as the savior of the future. In the United States, however, he suffered an electoral setback in Nov., 1918, after appealing for the return of a Democratic Congress as an endorsement of his foreign policy; the Republicans captured both houses of Congress.

Shortly afterward (December) Wilson set sail for Europe as head of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Conference; his attendance broke all American precedents. Angry at Republican criticism, Wilson did not include any active Republican, or any Senator, on the peace commission. Wilson was received in Europe with warm ovations and set about trying to create a new world society, which would be governed by the “self-determination of peoples,” which would be free from secret diplomacy and wars, and, most important, which would have an association of nations to maintain international justice.

At the peace conference he became involved in long and bitter wrangles with Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando, and the other representatives of European powers. The resulting treaty (see Versailles, Treaty of) was far from being the fulfillment of his dream, although he did secure the adoption of the covenant establishing the League of Nations. Wilson accepted the treaty as being the best obtainable.

Disillusionment and Death

At home, opposition to the League had been growing, and when Wilson returned (July, 1919) with the signed treaty, his accomplishments at Paris were received with mixed feelings. In the Senate, quarrels over the ratification of the treaty and the proposed amendments broke out immediately. In the group that emerged as opponents of the League, Henry Cabot Lodge was outstanding. Nevertheless, despite the agitation of a handful of “irreconcilables,” the Senate would probably have ratified the treaty if certain reservations protecting U.S. sovereignty had been added. Wilson, however, refused to compromise and sought popular support by making a speaking tour of the United States. He was on his way east from the Pacific coast when fatigue and strain brought on a sudden physical breakdown in Sept., 1919, and forced him to cancel his trip.

On Oct. 2, 1919, the President suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him for several months. He never entirely recovered, and for the remainder of his second term, Wilson, bitterly disillusioned, was virtually detached from the political scene. It has been postulated that he was so ill that his wife, Edith Bolling Wilson, made virtually all his political decisions for him. He continued to be uncompromising in his refusal to accept reservations on the League. Three years after the expiration of his term he died. His character and policies have been the subject of acrimonious debate, but even those who have doubted his wisdom have recognized him as one of the pivotal figures of American and world history. In 1920 he was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize for his Fourteen Points and for securing the adoption of the Convenant of the League of Nations as part of the Treaty of Versailles.

Writings

Wilson's writings on history and jurisprudence include Division and Reunion, 1829–1889 (1893), George Washington (1896), A History of the American People (5 vol., 1902), and Constitutional Government in the United States (1908). These books are distinguished by a wide knowledge of constitutional law and by the severe and polished literary style that also characterizes An Old Master and Other Political Essays (1893) and Mere Literature and Other Essays (1893). Wilson's addresses, messages, and speeches, considered among the finest by an American, have been published and republished in various collections; see L. S. Turnbull, Woodrow Wilson: A Selected Bibliography of His Published Writings, Addresses, and Public Papers (1948, repr. 1971). To date, 46 volumes of the definitive edition of the Wilson papers, under the editorship of Arthur S. Link, have been published (1966–84).

Bibliography

The Woodrow Wilsons (1937), by E. W. McAdoo (his daughter) and M. Y. Gaffrey, is an intimate account of his family life. See also biographies by J. M. Blum (1956), S. B. McKinley (1957), H. Hoover (1958), A. Link (5 vol., 1947–65), A. Heckscher (1992), J. W. S. Nordholt (1992), and L. Auchincloss (2000); R. S. Baker, Woodrow Wilson and the World Settlement (3 vol., 1922; repr. 1960) and Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters (8 vol., 1927–39, repr. 1968); T. A. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace (1944, repr. 1963) and Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal (1945); J. Daniels, The Wilson Era (1946); E. H. Buehrig, Woodrow Wilson and the Balance of Power (1955, repr. 1968) and Wilson's Foreign Policy in Perspective (1957, repr. 1970); H. W. Bragdon, Woodrow Wilson: The Academic Years (1967); A. Link, ed., Woodrow Wilson: A Profile (1968); L. E. Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition (1987); J. M. Cooper, Jr., Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (2001).

1856 - 1924

U.S. president, 1913 - 1921.

Woodrow Wilson led the United States into World War I with his Fourteen Points as war aims. Among them was the promise of self-determination for the peoples of enemy states, including the Ottoman Empire. Self-determination reflected American idealism, but it conflicted with the imperial ambitions of Britain and France, the nation's wartime allies.

At the Paris Peace Conference held in 1919, the Hashimite leaders of Arabia sought a sovereign Arab state (including Palestine). This had been promised to them by the British in return for their revolt against the Turks. This state was supported by U.S. Protestant missionaries who had been resident for decades in the Ottoman territories. Also, the leaders of the Zionist movement sought access to Palestine for Jewish immigration based on a promise (the Balfour Declaration) made to them by the British in return for wartime support.

President Wilson led the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. There he came under pressure from both Zionists and those supporting an Arab state. One result of this situation was the creation of the King-Crane Commission, the mission of which was to determine the popular will of the people of "Greater Syria." At the same time the president came under pressure to modify his support for self-determination so as to accommodate the imperial designs of his allies. The compromise realized here was a "mandate system" under the auspices of the League of Nations. It was Wilson's belief in the "backward" nature of non-European populations that allowed him to accept the mandate system. The King-Crane Commission report was shelved, leaving imperialism triumphant in the guise of mandates.

Bibliography

Heckscher, August. Woodrow Wilson. New York: Scribner, 1991.

Schulte Nordholt, Jan Willem. Woodrow Wilson: A Life forWorld Peace, translated by Herbert H. Rowen. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

— ZACHARY KARABELL
UPDATED BY LAWRENCE DAVIDSON

(1856-1924)

1885	Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics. Wilson's first book, his doctoral dissertation, analyzes the relationship between the executive and legislative branches. It contains the core of Wilson's political ideas and has been called "one of the truly significant books in the literature of American democracy."
1902	A History of the American People. Having serialized portions of his popular account of American political history in Harper's magazine in 1901, Wilson completes his five-volume survey, written, as he later observed, in order "to find which way we were going." Appointed president of Princeton on June 9, Wilson declares, "I have ceased to be an historian, and have become a man of business."
1908	Constitutional Government in the United States. The last of Wilson's major works represents a rethinking of many of the key tenets of his masterwork, Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics (1885), including a stronger conviction in favor of the power of the executive branch.

A political leader and educator of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A Democrat, he was elected president in 1912 after serving as president of Princeton University (see Ivy League) and as governor of New Jersey. Wilson was president from 1913 to 1921. He tried to keep the United States neutral after World War I broke out in 1914; his campaign slogan in 1916 was “He kept us out of war.” After Germany had repeatedly violated the neutral status of the United States, the country finally did enter the war in 1917, with Wilson maintaining that “the world must be made safe for democracy.” Wilson produced his aims for peace, Fourteen Points, soon afterward. At Wilson's insistence, the treaty that ended the war provided for a new international organization, the League of Nations. Wilson was bitterly disappointed when the United States Senate later refused to permit the United States to join the League. He went on a strenuous speaking tour to convince the American public of the League's importance. While on the tour, he suffered a stroke, from which he never fully recovered. In 1919, Wilson was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace.

Quotes:

"The world must be made safe for democracy."

"That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic."

"America is the place where you cannot kill your government by killing the men who conduct it."

"Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles."

"I believe in democracy, because it releases the energies of every human being."

"We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers."

See more famous quotes by Woodrow T. Wilson