Thomas Woodrow Wilson (28 December 1856 – 3 February 1924) was the President of the United States from 4 March 1913 to 4 March 1921, succeeding William Howard Taft and preceding Warren G. Harding. The first progressive Democrat to serve as President of the United States, Wilson was best known for his role in creating the modern income tax and the Federal Reserve in 1913, for his creation of the Federal Trade Commission and his passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act, his leadership of the United States during World War I, and his role in the founding of the League of Nations. However, his support for racial segregation remained a lasting controversy, and, amid the 2020 George Floyd protests, Princeton University decided to remove Wilson's name from its School of Public and International Affairs.
Biography[]
Woodrow Wilson was born on 28 December 1856 in Staunton, Virginia, the grandson of immigrants from County Tyrone, Ireland on his father's side and from Paisley and Glasgow, Scotland on his mother's side. Wilson studied at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and he worked as a lecturer at Cornell University, at Bryn Mawr College, Wesleyan University, and New York Law School. Wilson became active in the Democratic Party due to his belief that the US Constitution's laws were open to corruption, and he wrote several textbooks in the 1890s. In June 1902, he became the President of Princeton University in New Jersey, and he served as Governor of New Jersey from 17 January 1911 to 1 March 1913, succeeding John Franklin Fort and preceding James Fairman Fielder; during that time, he was affiliated with the conservative-liberal Bourbon Democrats.
President[]
President Wilson in 1919
Wilson took advantage of a split in the Republican Party in 1912 (caused by Theodore Roosevelt's formation of the Bull-Moose Party) to run a highly successful campaign for President of the United States, winning the election in a landslide and taking office on 4 March 1913. Wilson introduced the Federal Reserve banks, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the Federal Farm Loan Act, among others, and he introduced an income tax while lowering tariffs. Wilson also averted a railroad strike with the Adamson Act, introducing an 8-hour workday for railroad workers. In 1916, Wilson was reelected by a narrow margin, the first Democratic candidate since Andrew Jackson to be elected to two consecutive terms. Wilson promised to keep America out of World War I, as he feared that the USA would be caught up in world affairs if it was to be involved, but the German Empire's unrestricted submarine warfare led to the sinking of several American ships. In April 1917, the US Congress issued a declaration of war on Germany, and the US Army sent 10,000 soldiers to France a day by 1918, drafting US troops to fight overseas for the first time. He left military strategy to generals such as John J. Pershing, while he passed the Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918 to censor opposition to the draft.
After the war, he was instrumental in founding the League of Nations to settle disputes by debate instead of war, but Congress rejected his plan for a "New World Order" and refused to allow the USA to enter the league. Wilson left office in 1921 after suffering from a stroke, choosing not to run for a third term. He died in 1924, having been honored with a Nobel Peace Prize.