I figured it was time to read something on Woodrow Wilson. Any person Glenn Beck hates with such a passion as to mention him nearly fortnightly as the cause of every problem in our democracy, has got to be interesting at the very least. President Wilson was guilty of being a progressive, but he was hardly alone in his era. Wilson’s tenure as president (1913-1921) was at the tail end of a long progressive movement in politics and the Social Gospel movement in America’s churches. Every man and every politician is the product of the attitudes and possibilities of his times. What is often called socialism in today’s emotionally charged environment just 50 years ago (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon) was politics as usual in the view of a majority (a slim one though) of Americans. All that to say, Wilson was hardly remarkable as a progressive in the second decade of the 20th century. What I found fascinating about Wilson was how he could convince the nation we wouldn’t be entering WWI, run on this for re-election, and then turn this around and make the war a just and moral crusade for reasons that were hardly a major provocation. Of course from that time forward the Wilsonian idea that America can engage in wars overseas if it is to promote democracy has been at times a difficult burden to bear even if it can be justified. Wilson won that war and then had a Waterloo of his own over the League of Nations which was a noble idea but obviously devoid of reality. What is shocking and almost nauseating is his neglect of the country after the death of his first wife Ellen and then his widower whirlwind romance with his second wife Edith along with a debilitating stroke at the end of his term. The demands of the office along with the electronic media would not permit such a luxury in today’s environment. But Wilson was a deft politician and a leader of men even when he was going against the tide of his time. It was part arrogance, but I think mostly destiny in the case of our 28th president.
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