Woodrow Wilson served as the 28th president of the United States from March 4, 1913, to March 4, 1921. A Democrat and former governor of New Jersey, Wilson took office after winning the 1912 presidential election, where he defeated the Republican candidate, incumbent President William Howard Taft, and the Progressive candidate, former president Theodore Roosevelt. Wilson was re-elected in 1916 by a narrow margin. Despite his New Jersey base, most Southern leaders worked with him as a fellow Southerner. Wilson suffered from several strokes late into his presidency and was succeeded by Republican Warren G. Harding, who won the 1920 election in a landslide.
Wilson was a leading force in the Progressive Movement. During his first term, he oversaw the passage of progressive legislative policies unparalleled until the New Deal in the 1930s. Taking office one month after the ratification of the 16th Amendment of the Constitution permitted a federal income tax, he helped pass the Revenue Act of 1913, which introduced a low federal income tax to replace revenue lost in lower tariff rates. The income tax soared to high rates after the U.S. entered World War I in 1917. Other major progressive legislation passed during Wilson's first term included the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the Federal Farm Loan Act. With the passing of the Adamson Act—which imposed an 8-hour workday for railroads—he averted a threatened railroad strike. Concerning race issues, Wilson's administration reinforced segregationist policies for government agencies. He became deeply involved with a moralistic policy in dealing with Mexico's civil war. Upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral and sought to broker a peace agreement between the Allies and Central Powers.
Wilson's second term was dominated by America's roles fighting and financing World War I, and designing a peaceful postwar world. In April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany, entering the conflict in the side of the Allies, as a result of the Germans' resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. Through the Selective Service Act, conscription sent 10,000 freshly trained soldiers to France per day by summer 1918. On the home front, Wilson raised income taxes, set up the War Industries Board, promoted labor union cooperation, regulated agriculture and food production through the Lever Act, and nationalized the nation's railroad system. In his 1915 State of the Union, Wilson asked Congress for what became the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, suppressing anti-draft activists. The crackdown was later intensified by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to include expulsion of non-citizen radicals during the First Red Scare of 1919–1920. Wilson infused morality into his internationalism, an ideology now referred to as "Wilsonian"—an activist foreign policy calling on the nation to promote global democracy. In early 1918, he issued his principles for peace, the Fourteen Points, and in 1919, following the signing of an armistice with Germany, he traveled to Paris, concluding the Treaty of Versailles. Wilson embarked on a nationwide tour to campaign for the treaty, which would have included U.S. entrance into the League of Nations. He was left incapacitated by a stroke in October 1919 and the treaty failed in the Senate.
Despite his bad health and diminished mental capacity, Wilson served the remainder of his second term and hoped to get his party's nomination for a third term. In the 1920 presidential election, Republican Warren G. Harding defeated Democratic nominee James M. Cox in a landslide. Historians and political scientists rank Wilson as an above-average president, and his presidency was an important forerunner of modern American liberalism. However, Wilson has also been criticized for his racist views and actions.
Presidential election of 1912
Wilson became a prominent 1912 presidential contender immediately upon his election as Governor of New Jersey in 1910. Already famous as president of Princeton and as a leading intellectual, his political stature soared after he defeated the state's political bosses and emerged as a national leader of the Progressive movement to reform America.Cooper 2009, pp. 140–141 Prior to the 1912 Democratic National Convention, Wilson made a special effort to win the approval of three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan, whose followers had largely dominated the Democratic Party since 1896.Cooper 2009, pp. 141–142 Speaker of the House Champ Clark of Missouri was viewed by many as the front-runner for the nomination, while House Majority Leader Oscar Underwood of Alabama also loomed as a challenger. Clark found support among the Bryan wing of the party, while Underwood appealed to the conservative Bourbon Democrats, especially in the South.Cooper 2009, pp. 149–150 On the first ballot of the Democratic National Convention, Clark won a plurality, and on the tenth ballot, he won a majority of the delegates after the New York Tammany Hall machine swung behind him. However, the Democratic Party rules required a nominee to win two-thirds of the delegates to win the nomination, and balloting continued.Cooper 2009, pp. 155–156 The Wilson campaign picked up delegates by promising the vice presidency to Governor Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana, and several Southern delegations shifted their support from Underwood to Wilson, a native Southerner. Wilson finally won two-thirds of the vote on the convention's 46th ballot, and Marshall became Wilson's running mate.Cooper 2009, pp. 157–158
Wilson faced a deeply divided opposition. Incumbent William Howard Taft won the Republican nomination after a bitter battle against Theodore Roosevelt, a former Republican President. Roosevelt bolted the GOP and created a new third party—the Progressive Party. A fourth candidate, Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party, had a small national base in the labor movement. The split in the Republican Party gave Democrats every expectation of victory for the first time since the 1892.Cooper 2009, pp. 154–155 Roosevelt emerged as Wilson's main challenger, and Wilson and Roosevelt focused on attacking each other despite sharing similarly progressive platforms that called for a strong, interventionist central government.Cooper 2009, pp. 166–167, 174–175 Wilson won 435 of the 531 electoral votes and 41.8% of the popular vote, while Roosevelt won most of the remaining electoral votes and 27.4% of the popular vote, representing one of the strongest third party performances in U.S. history. Taft won 23.2% of the popular vote but just 8 electoral votes, while Debs won 6% of the popular vote. In the concurrent congressional elections, Democrats retained control of the House and won a majority in the Senate. Wilson's victory made him the first Southerner to win the presidency since 1848.Cooper 2009, pp. 173–174
Personnel and appointments Cabinet and administration
After the election, Wilson quickly chose William Jennings Bryan as Secretary of State, and Bryan offered advice on the remaining members of Wilson's cabinet.Cooper 2009, pp. 185 William Gibbs McAdoo, a prominent Wilson supporter who married Wilson's daughter in 1914, became Secretary of the Treasury, while James Clark McReynolds, who had successfully prosecuted prominent antitrust cases, was chosen as Attorney General. On the advice of Underwood, Wilson appointed Texas Congressman Albert S. Burleson as Postmaster General.Cooper 2009, pp. 190–192 Bryan resigned in 1915 due to his opposition to Wilson's hard line toward Germany in the aftermath of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.Cooper 2009, pp. 290–292 Bryan was replaced by Robert Lansing, and Wilson took more direct control of his administration's foreign policy after Bryan's departure.Cooper 2009, pp. 294–295 Newton D. Baker, a progressive Democrat, became Secretary of War in 1916, and Baker led the War Department during World War I.Cooper 2009, pp. 311–312 Wilson's cabinet experienced turnover after the conclusion of World War I, with Carter Glass replacing McAdoo as Secretary of the Treasury and A. Mitchell Palmer becoming Attorney General.Cooper 2009, p. 459
Wilson's chief of staff ("Secretary") was Joseph Patrick Tumulty from 1913 to 1921. Tumulty's position provided a political buffer and intermediary with the press, and his irrepressible spirit offset the president's often dour disposition.Heckscher 1991, p. 277. Wilson's first wife, Ellen Axson Wilson, died on August 6, 1914.Heckscher 1991, pp. 333–335. Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt in 1915,Heckscher 1991, pp. 350, 356. and she assumed full control of Wilson's schedule, diminishing Tumulty's power. The most important foreign policy advisor and confidant was "Colonel" Edward M. House until Wilson broke with him in early 1919, for his missteps at the peace conference in Wilson's absence. Wilson's vice president, former Governor Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana, played little role in the administration.
Press corps Wilson fervently believed that public opinion ought to shape national policy, albeit with a few exceptions involving delicate diplomacy, and he paid close attention to newspapers. Press secretary Joseph Patrick Tumulty proved generally effective until Wilson's second wife began to distrust him and reduced his influence.John Morton Blum, Joe Tumulty and the Wilson Era (1951). Wilson pioneered twice-weekly press conferences in the White House. They were modestly effective, though the president prohibited his being quoted and often made purposely vague statements.Heckscher 1991, pp. 283–284. The first such press conference was held on March 15, 1913, when reporters were allowed to ask him questions.
Wilson had a mixed record with the press. Relations were generally smooth, but he ended weekly meetings with the White House correspondents after the Lusitania sinking in 1915. He also sharply restricted access during the 1919 peace conference. In both cases, Wilson was afraid that publicity would interfere with his quiet diplomacy. Journalists such as Walter Lippmann found a workaround, discovering that Colonel House was both highly talkative and devious in manipulating the press to slant its stories. A major problem facing the administration was that 90 percent of the major newspapers and magazine outside the South had traditionally favored Republicans. The administration countered this by quietly collaborating with favorable reporters who admired Wilson's leadership in the cause of world peace; their newspapers printed their reports because their scoops made news. The German-language press was vehemently hostile to Wilson, but he used this to his advantage, attacking hyphenates as loyal to a foreign country.James D. Startt, Woodrow Wilson, the Great War, and the Fourth Estate (2017) p. xii.
Judicial appointments