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- WILSON PROMOTED PROGRESSIVE SOCIAL AGENDAS
DEBATE APPLICATIONMotives are a difficult thing to ascertain in any human being, given the myriad factors at play in the formation of one’s thinking. It is better, in my estimation, to examine the policies Wilson favored rather than muddy the water with simple labels like “idealism,” which mean different things to different people. A more concrete term we can grab onto might be “liberalism”: the belief that government economic or social interventions are necessary to build a just world. Wilson is important to understand as a precursor to today’s modern liberal politicians, both in domestic and foreign policy. His ideas have impacted today’s Democratic party in at least two major ways. Economic policy: unlike his Republican successors such as Calvin Coolidge, Wilson didn’t believe in “laissez-faire” (let it be) economics. He believed the government should take an active role in stimulating the economy through establishing necessary regulations at home. Overseas, he backed the free trade policies that modern Democrats fall over themselves to back. One can see Bill Clinton’s economic policy’s roots in Wilson. He passed the Family Leave Act as a domestic reform to marginally benefit working Americans while vigorously pursuing free trade agreements abroad. Foreign policy: Wilson, despite his initial reluctance to get involved in World War I, was interventionist by nature. This can be explained by the American public’s marked opposition to the war: he knew from polls what a winning election issue would be, but then pursued his own policies after employing substantial spin from his propaganda agency. For these reasons, it is possible to see both Bush’s and Clinton’s attacks on Iraq, for example, as Wilsonian in nature -- the defense of a nation from an attack by an autocratic and oppressive neighbor (though Wilson wouldn’t have been a fan of Kuwait’s oppressive monarchy, either). CONCLUSION: THE LEGACY OF WOODROW WILSON When Wilson was president, his dogged pursuit of the Versailles Treaty necessitated traveling 8,000 miles by rail around the country. After this effort, he fell ill and never fully recovered. Since Wilson was unable to campaign for the presidency, James M. Cox took the Democratic nomination and was beaten by Warren G. Harding in 1920. Wilson retired to Washington, D.C., where he died in 1924. He never saw most of the impact his ideas would have on the world. BIBLIOGRAPHYAdar, Korwa G. professor of International Relations at the International Studies Unit, Political Studies Department, Rhodes University, South Africa, AFRICAN STUDIES QUARTERLY, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1998, http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v2/v2i2a3.htm, accessed April 22, 2002. Ambrosius, Lloyd. WOODROW WILSON AND THE AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC TRADITION: THE TREATY FIGHT IN PERSPECTIVE; Cambridge University Press, 1990 AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: WOODROW WILSON, PBS documentary, 2001, available online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/sfeature/sf_legacy.html, accessed May 1, 2002. Auchincloss, Louis. WOODROW WILSON: A PENGUIN LIFE, Viking Press, 2000. Blum, John Morton. WOODROW WILSON AND THE POLITICS OF MORALITY, Addison-Wesley Pub Co, 1998 Chomsky, Noam. Professor of Linguistics at the Massachussets Institute of Technology, Z MAGAZINE, November 1994, p. 10. Daniels, Josephus. THE LIFE OF WOODROW WILSON, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1971. Gilderhus, Mark. PAN AMERICAN VISIONS: WOODROW WILSON AND THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, 1913-1921; University of Arizona Press, 1986 Knock, Thomas. TO END ALL WARS: WOODROW WILSON AND THE QUEST FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER; Princeton University Press, 1995 Kuehl. Warren and Lynne Dunn, KEEPING THE COVENANT: AMERICAN INTERNATIONALISTS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, 1920-1939; Kent State University Press, 1997 Levin, Norman Gordon. WOODROW WILSON AND WORLD POLITICS; AMERICA'S RESPONSE TO WAR AND REVOLUTION; Oxford University Press, 1980 Link, Arthur. CAMPAIGNS FOR PROGRESSIVISM AND PEACE; Princeton University Press, 1965 Link, Arthur. THE NEW FREEDOM; Princeton University Press, 1956 Rowen, Herbert. WOODROW WILSON: A LIFE FOR WORLD PEACE, University of California Press, 1991 Zinn, Howard. Professor Emeritus of History at Boston University, Z MAGAZINE NETWORK DAILY COMMENTARY, May 7, 2000, http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/content/2000-05/07zinn.htm, accessed April 22, 2002. WILSON PROMOTED PROGRESSIVE SOCIAL AGENDAS1. WILSON’S LEGACY INCLUDES MANY PROGRESSIVE AGENDAS Ira Katznelson, Historian, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: WOODROW WILSON, PBS documentary, 2001, p. np, available online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/sfeature/sf_legacy.html, accessed May 1, 2002. Wilson matters as the first modern president. Wilson matters as the person who led the United States into global geopolitics. Wilson matters as someone who followed a progressive political agenda and who established a model for subsequent possibilities, some of which had to wait a long time to come back. 2. WILSON’S CONCEPTS OF POWER AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ARE STILL USEFUL John M. Mulder, Historian, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: WOODROW WILSON, PBS documentary, 2001, p. np, available online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/sfeature/sf_legacy.html, accessed May 1, 2002. I see Wilson's life as tragic in the sense that he obviously lost on the League. He's not tragic however in the larger scope of American history because what he did was to help us understand the complexity of power both domestically and internationally in ways that we are still working with. The Wilsonian concepts of how political power should be used on behalf of social justice are still defining assumptions for twentieth century American political life.
Ira Katznelson, Historian, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: WOODROW WILSON, PBS documentary, 2001, p. np, available online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/sfeature/sf_legacy.html, accessed May 1, 2002. Wilson's also important as the president who presided over a number of major constitutional changes. The direct election of United States senators, prohibition, and women’s suffrage. The period of his presidency was a period therefore of extraordinary new assertion of governmental capacity in the United States, as well as presidential ambition.
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