this video is brought to you by squarespace from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the alabama platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business check out squarespace through the link in the description below more about them in just a bit he was one of the greatest presidents in us history elected in 1912 on a platform of protecting the little man woodrow wilson hit washington like a progressive missile under his watch monopolies were smashed up protections brought in for workers the basis of the modern banking system created as a wartime leader too he was unimpeachable bringing moral conviction to the endgame of one of history's bloodiest conflicts at least that's one way we could open this video an introduction that might be subtitled the progressive hero but there's another darker version an opening we might call the authoritarian in this version we'd start by intoning that wilson was perhaps one of the worst presidents in american history from there we'd list his crimes his staggering racism is crushing of civil liberties his invasions of mexico haiti the dominican republic in this opening wilson wouldn't be a hero but a man who used a tiny mandate to trample the constitution so which is it which one of today's two openings is real as we're about to find out in this video is both [Music] thomas woodrow wilson was born december 28 1856 into a family of what were then known as doe faces this is mid 19th century speak for northerners who sympathized with southerners and it summed up his parents perfectly the boy's father reverend joseph ruggles-wilson was an ohio lad who'd quit the buckeye state moved south and became more fiercely southern than jefferson davis when the civil war broke out reverend wilson would join the confederate army as a chaplain nor was much different an english woman who'd moved across the pond jesse woodrow wilson would spend the war tending wounded southern soldiers one of wilson's earliest memories was watching his beloved mama look after the injured in their quaint little georgian town perhaps unsurprisingly it would be moments like this that came to define the boy's early life in 1864 seven-year-old wilson witnessed sherman's march to the seas the union general swept through georgia leaving ruin in his wake just months later he watched as confederate commander robert e lee slowly made his way into augusta weary and defeated in later life wilson would say that he never forgot looking up into the general's eyes but of course hard memories didn't end with the south's defeat the family lived through reconstruction a time wilson remembered not as an attempt to integrate a racially divided society but one of clawing fear in the newly freed slaves the family saw only criminals recalling this era wilson would write the task of ordinary labor stood untouched the idlers grew insolent dangerous knights went anxiously by for fear of riot and incendiary fire although the family moved to a racially mixed town in 1870 wilson would never forget these moments justice he'd never forget the lessons taught to him by ex-confederate soldiers in the makeshift schools son ran for cash lessons filled with the romance of the lost cause still there were other influences in his life beyond those of the war shattered south his father impressed upon wilson a firm presbyterian faith one which would ensure the boy always believed he was doing god's work there was his love of reading too particularly on british history which would help form his political beliefs but perhaps the greatest influence was ellen louise axon the daughter of a southern clergyman ellen was both an artist and a woman dedicated to social causes it's from her that wilson would discover his progressive instincts his desire to stand up for the ordinary man well so long as that ordinary man was white but we'll come to that later for now let's just sit back and watch as wilson graduates with his phd thanks to a thesis that argued for replacing the american system with a strong centralized executive like in britain let's watch too as he grows into a devoutly religious man capable of great warmth to his friends and cold cruelty to anyone he thought had slighted him it's this man who in 1902 would be offered the job of president of princeton university one of america's top ivy league schools princeton at this time was in desperate need of reform a place stuck firmly in a fusty comfortable past wilson was determined to change that treating his role more like a dictator of princeton rather than a president the southern gentleman set about shaking things up with all the delicacy of a category 5 hurricane blowing away the old order and building a modern system atop the ruins it was wilson in a nutshell disruption in the name of a greater progressive goal one that soon got him noticed by new jersey's politicians but even here there was a dark side to his approach as president of princeton wilson was instrumental in stopping black students from enrolling in an era when racism was saturating american society this went mostly unnoticed it would only be in hindsight that people realized what an insight it afforded into wilson's true character [Music] in 1910 new jersey democrats had a problem previous years had seen their party beset by scandals and the corrosive influence of machine politics a system let's scratch my back and i'll scratch yours and or scratch my back and i'll give you the contents of the straight treasury if they wanted to win the upcoming race for governor they'd have to find a new kind of candidate one untainted by all of this graft someone like say the president of a popular university on hearing their offer wilson's one demand was that he'd be able to govern with no strings attached thinking this naive academic would be easy to control the party bosses were all like nothing only to watch in horror as wilson exploded everything in both the race and his governorship new jersey got a crash course in all the best and all the worst aspects of woodrow wilson styling himself as an unconstitutional governor wilson attacked democrat machine politics with a cudgel bringing in anti-corruption measures designed to loosen boss's grip on the party he unveiled a slew of progressive reforms including workers compensation laws at the same time this was only made possible by a disregard for convention and a drive to centralize power in his own hands but for a man who literally believed that he was doing god's work what did such niceties matter by 1912 wilson's star was rising in the larger democratic party a party desperately in need of fresh blood the last time a democrat of what a presidential election had been when grover cleveland nabbed a second non-consecutive term in 1892 and even then had been an anomaly the only democrat elected since the civil war in other words the party was ready for a change of direction and who was to say that new direction couldn't be embodied by a perspective academic with the look of a disappointed priest after a bruising battle at that summer's convention wilson took the nomination with a platform that included everything from smashing monopolies and introducing a federal income tax to securing independence for the philippines yet his candidacy was considered a long shot bid the republicans under william howard taft were sitting comfortably in the white house it would take something extraordinary to dislodge them the ultimate black swan event in the end though it wouldn't be a black swan that saved wilson but a bull moose taft's predecessor had been teddy roosevelt a vigorous chest-thumping man who cared little about keeping his opinions to himself and his opinion in 1912 was that taft was a corpulent waste of space blocking the country from what it needed a third term of rooseveltian testosterone at the convention taft's allies panickedly blocked roosevelt's delegates lest he nab the nomination so roosevelt founded his own progressive party popularly known as the bull moose party and began an electrifying independent bid for the presidency the result was a campaign that saw president have dropped from front runner to third place has been as wilson and teddy slugged it out privately wilson didn't rate his chances admitting that he felt like a colorless school master next to the former president but since this is a video on woodrow wilson 28th president not woodrow wilson random guy who lost to teddy roosevelt you can probably guess what happened next on november 5th the republican vote was split hopelessly between roosevelt and taft although he squeaked a mere 41.8 percent of the popular vote less than the losing candidate in most elections the result was an electoral college landslide for wilson on march the 4th 1913 the southern gentleman was sworn in the last president to arrive at his inauguration in a horse-drawn carriage it was the beginning of the wilsonian 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becoming the first president since john adams to address congress and so the starting gun was fired on a slew of reforms in this first term we can helpfully divide most of these reforms into four categories work money business race in the work category you have stuff like wilson's support for an eight-hour workday or his attempts to tackle the thorny issue of child labour really though it was in the other categories he made the biggest impact especially regarding money it was wilson's administration that established the federal reserve still the system that underpins banking in the united states today it was also wilson who pushed for congress to establish a permanent federal income tax recently made possible by the passage of the 16th amendment now this wasn't completely new congress had previously levied an income tax back in the civil war but wilson's first term marked the beginning of federal income tax as a fact of life one that continues to this day there would also be similar upheavals for business one of wilson's big deals was his intense loathing of monopolies and a desire to break them up to that ant he pursued first tariff reform then anti-trust legislation then finally established the federal trade commission to investigate and punish anti-competitive business practices but while how you feel about these reforms probably depends on your general feelings towards things like taxes and sending children up chimney flus things aren't so subjective regarding our final category on race wilson's record was woeful as a man of the south who'd lived through reconstruction wilson had some pretty fixed ideas on race relations the main idea being that there shouldn't be relations between the races at all despite this he actively courted the black vote in 1912 and hopes were high that his progressive reforms would include non-white people once in office though wilson simply couldn't shake his inner good old boy a month after his inauguration wilson signed off on a plan to re-segregate the mail service up till this point the federal government had been one of the few places that black folk could easily get hired and even ascend to well-paid managerial positions this was something previous presidents had fiercely guarded both taft and roosevelt had championed an integrated workforce then wilson entered office and everything changed in 1913 the post office and treasury both introduced segregation with separate workspaces bathrooms and cafeterias within no time at all the practice was spreading across federal departments but it didn't stop with the bathrooms swathes of black workers were demoted had their pay slashed or were just straight up fired wilson himself sacked 15 of the federal services 17 black supervisors replacing them all with white dudes for middle-class black people hit by these reforms it wasn't just damaging it was humiliating here were people who'd spent their entire lives working for the government pulling their families up towards prosperity only to have it all snatched away with no explanation it's not like wilson was blind to these effects in 1914 black leaders came to him in the white house and begged him to reverse course to their shock wasn't told them segregation is not humiliating but a benefit and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen by then that was woodrow wilson all over even by the abysmal standards of his time he was simply a racist unable to conceive that black people might be deserving of equal treatment or that the antebellum south might not have been that great for enslaved people you can see this from one of his notable firsts the first movie to be screened at the white house it was birth the nation a hateful if technically impressive screed in which the ku klux klan are portrayed as the good guys by most accounts wilson thoroughly enjoyed it [Music] for all domestic issues that may have absorbed most of wilson's attention it was a crisis brewing thousands miles away that would determine his historical reputation olsen had been on the job for 17 months when world war erupted turning europe's meadows into some of the worst killing fields imaginable but when teddy roosevelt would advocate an american role in the great war wilson wanted no such thing with one in seven americans born in the country now super killing one another the 28th president was acutely aware of the discord u.s involvement could cause so he became a fierce champion of neutrality although admittedly a type of neutrality that still ignored the german naval blockade of the british isles this last point led to a catastrophe in 1915 when a u-boat sank the british ship lusitania off the coast of ireland 1200 people died including 128 americans the outrage nearly pulled the us into the war it was only after germany agreed to pull back its submarine warfare that wilson was able to step back from the brink he probably felt relieved after all by this time his administration was already involved in a kaleidoscope of foreign military adventures despite personally advocating a more peaceful approach to latin america wilson sure as heck was not shy about sending troops south of the border in april 1914 the arrest of some american sailors in revolutionary mexico led wilson to order the marines to occupy veracruz an action that lasted till november remarkably this was pretty short by wilson's standards 1915 saw wilson respond to political chaos in haiti by having the entire country occupied kicking off an afghanistan-style attempt at a nation building that would last until 1934. the following year 1916 uncle sam vaulted over haiti's border and likewise occupied the dominican republic in both cases the stated aim was to end chaos and turn the two nations into functional democracies in both cases america would fail miserably still not every adventure abroad ended in disaster in 1917 wilson helped usher through congress a bill that began paving the way for filipino independence handing the philippines a degree of autonomy in a similar vein he also signed the bill making puerto rico a territory and granting its inhabitants u.s citizenship as well as one that purchased the virgin islands from denmark we'd be lying though if we didn't admit that most of wilson's foreign policy tended to focus on sending men with guns to various places in one case in 1916 this almost led to war with mexico after u.s forces were sent across the border without permission to try and capture pancho villa as payback for a raid on an american town still as wilson prepared his re-election campaign he could reasonably claim to have kept the us out of any major wars it was this record that he ran on under the slogan he kept us out of war and it likely led to his second term when all the votes were counted in 1916 wilson had carried california the state that allowed him to squeak a narrow electoral college victory by a mere 0.38 percent it is thought californian irish and german communities had put him over the top as a reward for staying out of world war one but if that was the case then oh boy were voters in for some disappointment by the time wilson gave his second inaugural address in march 1917 america would be hurtling headlong into war [Music] to be fair to wilson options for staying out of world war one in spring 1917 were pretty meager that february germany had resumed unrestricted submarine warfare vaulting over an american red line worse till british intelligence had intercepted and published the zimmermann telegram a german message to mexico that basically went what else do you ask fancy invading the united states we promise to let you keep texas with such flagrant provocations wilson did the only thing he realistically could on april 2 1917 he asked congress to declare war on germany and he got his wish and so began the most controversial part of wilson's presidency the declaration of war unleashed wilson's centralizing power hoarding tendencies to an unbelievable degree overnight swaths of american industry were nationalized including the railroad and telephone networks and in practice if not name the shipping industry special agencies began to sprout up like mushrooms dedicated to redirecting all aspects of public life towards winning the war there were agencies to work with business with unions to flood the nation with pro-war propaganda to increase food production such changes had enormous impact on american life from little things like the introduction of daylight savings time to the ascent of herbert hoover who first became prominent in politics spearheading a food-saving drive but many though the most immediate impact came in two forms in their finances and in the draft as america shifted to a war economy wilson brought in new income taxes to finance it but while that stung some pocketbooks others got fatter than they'd ever been all this increased production pushed employment up to nearly a hundred percent among those newly employed were the 2.8 million conscripted into the army the first american draft since the civil war this included 400 000 african-americans yet even now the administration couldn't shake its reflexive racism throughout world war one army units would be segregated while black men in the navy would be stuck doing food service not that it was only black people america was now discriminating against the advent of war unleashed a wave of ugly nationalism wilson did little to hold back in the streets german americans were in danger of intimidation and physical assault one man robert prager was even lynched others suffered baldur but no less painful discriminations from being fired from their jobs to xenophobic rulings in some states that banned these foreign languages perhaps the most notorious change though was the suspension of civil liberties the espionage and sedition acts were so sweeping they effectively made criticism of the government or armed forces illegal in total 1 500 americans would be successfully prosecuted by the wilson administration under these acts including socialist leader eugene debs sentenced to 10 years for opposing the draft nor was it only public speech that was targeted wilson empowered the post office to read and censor people's mail newspapers were subject to censorship for speaking out against the war all in all then the era was likely the most tightly controlled period in american life between the civil war and world war ii for many even today this remains wilson's unforgivable sin but while the home front was marred in controversy it was a different story abroad the first u.s troops reached europe in june 1917. by october the american expeditionary force was augmenting french and british units in early 1918 they were independently scoring victories that fall they'd play a key role in the musargon offensive in all some 116 000 americans would die in european trenches but they'd succeed in what they came to do faced with this influx of manpower on the allied side the central powers will to fight collapsed come november 11th 1918 world war one was over now all that was left to do was figure out the piece if you visit central europe today it won't be long before you find somewhere named after woodrow wilson here in prague for instance wilson over eliza runs by the main station over impulse end there's a bridge to the east in bruno a forest and that's just the czech republic the patent repeats across countries in this region a topographical reminder of how a generation of europeans viewed the 28th president much of this is thanks to the 14 points an address wilson made in january 1918 calling for among other things the breakup of the austro-hungarian empire and the creation of poland that was followed 11 months later with a trip to europe the first of any sitting u.s president there vast crowds gathered to cheer tens of thousands grateful for u.s food shipments for america recognizing their new nations if your view of wilson is primarily as a man who trampled civil liberties the idea of him as a hero might seem strange yet to europeans that's exactly what he was and it's one reason why there's no comparable movement over here to take his name off buildings even if he was a bit of a racist tool still all this goodwill doesn't mean wilson succeeded in his european objectives when he arrived in france the president's goals included peace without victory or not making germany suffer and establishing a league of nations to prevent future wars on that first point wilson would fail miserably the eye-watering reparations forced on berlin by the allies were so humiliating that they arguably led to world war ii the second point though seemed to be heading for success the countries at the peace conference agreed to wilson's cherished league of nations in 1920 it became a geopolitical reality but america would never be among its members by 1919 republicans were firmly in control of congress and only a handful were willing to vote with wilson rather than negotiate wilson instead tried going directly to the public embarking on a major speaking tour to convince america of the rightness of his plans it was an exhausting project one that saw wilson cover some ten thousand miles sadly his body couldn't take such a demanding schedule on october the second days after collapsing wilson suffered a horrific stroke half paralyzed the president went into seclusion sending orders through his second wife edith in fact this seclusion was so total that many suspect edith wilson secretly ran the government acting as stand-in president for the incapacitated wilson all of which may explain the fate of the league told republicans would only vote for a compromise version requiring congressional assent to send soldiers on league business wilson decided to kill the bill entirely it was the end of american involvement in the league and frankly the end of wilson's time as a mover of history sure his last years would see some significant events the advent of women's suffrage the racial violence of red summer really though wilson's biography more or less ends here with his body broken and his dreams of a new international order reduced to so much dust woodrow wilson left office on march 4th 1921 following a landslide win by affably corrupt republican warren g harding moving into a washington home he spent his retirement as a virtual hermit dreaming of a third presidential run that everyone knew could never happen wilson died after a second stroke on february 3 1924 at the age of 67. at the end of his life he was sure his legacy was secure that his time in office had been spent as god himself had wished yet with a century of hindsight we can see this wasn't true in scholarly rankings wilson has gone from a top five president to one who was recently ranked at 13. with more attention being paid to his racism it seems that his star is only going to sink lower indeed it's not uncommon to find people today who will assert that he was the worst president ever while that order probably goes to james buchanan from a civil liberties point of view it's hard to dispute that wilson was uniquely terrible and yet there's more to this story than just wilson the villain to a whole generation of europeans wilson was undoubtedly a hero a man who saved the continent in its hour of need for american workers too he helped improve conditions for millions passing on real tangible benefits if we could split these two sides of wilson into separate videos it'd be so much easier one titled the great president and one called the disaster but of course they weren't separate they were one person one president who did so much good while simultaneously doing so much evil whether that makes him a success a notable failure or a dark warning is up to each of us to decide hope you found today's video interesting if you did please do hit that like button below don't forget to subscribe and thank you for watching 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