What was so bad about Woodrow Wilson?

[ButterflyBlood]

I frequently see him on "worst presidents" lists as well as being mentioned as the worst Democrat by Democrats. I'm too familiar with the time period, what did he do?

[A J]

1. I always associate him with terrible propaganda

As president he was part of a terrible propaganda machine that routinely lied to people about WWI.

[Trajan]

2. There are good and bad aspects of His Presidency ...

Good: ... He developed a STRONG internationalist worldview that helped bring consensus and order to a factionalized world stage ...

Bad: .. He also promoted some severe restrictions of citizens liberties during that same era ...

[youngred]

3. and was a blatant racist

instituting racist judges that helped set up the worst conditions of segregation.

[bobbieinok]

7. fired blacks in national positions

often showed the horrible anti-black, pro-KKK movie The Klan in the WH

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

4. "internationalist worldview" meaning imperialism and propaganda

He started the infamous "Creel Commission" that produced anti-German propaganda, showing them as sub-human monsters. He won the election by promising not to get us into war, started up the propaganda, and went to war.

He arrested people for speaking out against the war and the war propaganda. He was also a white supremacist, who fired every single black person that worked for the federal government, refused to enforce civil rights laws, and openly courted the Ku Klux Klan.

Perhaps one of our worst presidents in history.

[lancdem]

5. Among historians he's regularly listed in the top 10

probably because of all the Progressive legislation that passed, and his efforts to form the League of Nations. However, he was a terrible racist. I was reminded of that recently when I read that he allowed that horrible D.W. Griffiths' film "Birth of a Nation" to premiere at the White House.

[JohnnyFianna1]

6. President

Nothing he just wasn't that great by democratic standards. Remember we've got JFK, FDR, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Johnson and Jackson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Truman and Lyndon Johnson (and Al Gore?). We've got a lot of great people to choose from who'll remembered as great people. The Republicans have Raygun(what the hell did he do?), Theo Roosevelt (actually a good president, he could've ran for the Democratic Party), Dwight D. Eisenhower ( another good one, but he saved the Republican Party :grr: by being a decent President), and of course the (another big Government Liberal who invented the income tax) Abe Lincoln. Plus, he was an awful racist and created the ineffective League of Nations(it became ineffective when they were unable to stop the most powerful nation in the world at the time Germany from going to war, nations didn't comply because they refused to assist them in containing Polands dangerous weapons, sound familiar).

[Xithras]

8. He was a racist progressive

The good:
1) He conceived and pushed the League of Nations as a way to prevent war.
2) He instituted the first PERMANENT progressive income tax in this nations history and began to wean us off of our tarriff based government economy.
3) He enacted child labor laws that kicked the kids out of the mills.
4) He supported the demilitarization of advanced countries.
5) He passed the nations first antitrust laws.
6) He instituted the concept of the 8-hour workday in the U.S.

Despite all of that, he was also an over-the-top racist who praised the KKK, publically stated that blacks should return to the cotton fields, supported the implementation of additional anti-Asian laws for the western states, and absolutely despised the Native Americans. When Japan attempted to have a clause inserted into the original League of Nations charter that defined all races as being equal, Wilson not only got the amendment rejected, but quietly tried to have the Japanese rejected (a move that helped set up Japanese anti-American attitudes which later helped lead them to war against us).

Historically, the bad aspects of his personality are allowed to override his other progressive traits. If he were alive today he'd be considered one of those "Liberal Republicans" that you hear about on CNN.

[Postman]

9. Union busting, war mongering liar. He'd of made a great Republican..

n/t

[Terran]

10. He re-introduced segregation to Washington DC

The man was an out-and-out racist, as has already been pointed out. I imagine a lot of 19th and early 20th century Presidents were, but he was really out there with it.

[Sandpiper]

11. Union buster, warmonger, anti first amendment, racist

Other than that, he was a fine human being.

[IndianaGreen]

13. That about covers it all!

Let's not forget the "Palmer raids" that have yet to be match by John Ashcroft.

[depakid]

12. He lied about the war

In 1916, his main campaign slogan was "he kept us out of war." Less than a month after his second inauguration, he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.

[IndianaGreen]

14. Eugene Debs was the best candidate in the 1912 Election

The only reason Wilson became President is because the Republicans split their vote between President Taft and Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose.

[depakid]

15. and opposition to the war landed him a 10 year prison sentence

despite being in jail, he was nominated for president again in 1920 by the Socialist Party- and received close to a million votes!

Warren Harding, of all people, pardoned him on Christmas Day in 1921....

During his trial, Debs had this to say to the jury:

"I am doing what little I can to do away with the rule of the great body of people by a relatively small class and establish in this country industrial and social democracy."

Tell me those words don't ring true today.

[IndianaGreen]

16. Debs's words still ring true today

The Anti-war Speech That Earned
Eugene Debs 10 Years in Prison

Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war.

The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose--especially their lives.

They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.

And here let me emphasize the fact--and it cannot be repeated too often--that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace. Yours not to reason why; Yours but to do and die. That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation. If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace....

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/debs-speech.htm

[depakid]

17. What a great speech

it's been a long time since I read that one. Thanks for the memory hole link-

btw: Eugene Debs was a son of Indiana (but of course you knew that) :toast:

[IndianaGreen]

18. The Debs Museum is in Terre Haute

and it is also on the web:

http://www.eugenevdebs.com/pages/tour.htm