Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad

1. Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad

2. Introduction • With the Republicans at odds with one another it was time for the Democrats to win the White House. Their choice was Woodrow Wilson, who was once a mild conservative now a militant progressive. He was a brilliant lecturer and had risen to the Presidency of Princeton University, where he achieved major educational reforms. • Wilson entered into politics in 1910 when New Jersey needed a candidate for governorship. When he got into the governorship he waged war on “trusts” and promised to return state government to the people.   • Wilson also made New Jersey one of the most liberal states, because once he was in the governor’s chair he pushed through many measures in the legislature. He was now becoming a national figure that was being mentioned for the presidency.

3. The Bull Moose Campaign of 1912 • When the democrats met in Baltimore they gave Wilson a strong progressive platform to run on. This program was called the New Freedom and this program called for a stronger antitrust legislation, banking reform, and tariff reductions. • Many events had been putting Roosevelt into to the fore front as a third party Progressive Republican ticket. Fired-up Progressives entered the campaign with enthusiasm. Roosevelt boasted and felt as strong as a Bull Moose, and the Bull Moose took its place with the donkey and the elephant in the American political zoo.

4. The Bull Moose Campaign of 1912 • Beyond the clashing of personalities, the question of 1912 campaign was which one of the progressives was going to come out on top, Roosevelt or Taft. Both men favored a more active government role in economic and social affairs, but they disagreed sharply over specific strategies. • Roosevelt favored continued consolidation of trusts and labor unions, by the growth of powerful agencies in Washington. Roosevelt also campaigned for women suffrage and a broad program of social welfare, including wage laws and socialistic insurance. • Wilson favored small enterprise, entrepreneurship, and the free functioning of unregulated and un-monopolized markets. The Democrats shunned social welfare proposals and pinned their economic faith on competition. • The election of 1912 offered the voters a choice not merely of policies but of political and economic philosophies. In the heat of the campaign cooled a bit when Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a crazy Rough Rider.

5. Woodrow Wilson: A Minority President • Wilson won handedly. Wilson with only 41 percent of the popular vote was clearly a minority president, though his party won the majority in Congress. As for the Republicans, they were thrust into a minority status in Congress for the next 6 years and were frozen out of the White House for 8 years. Taft himself became chief justice of the Supreme Court job, which was far more happily suited than the presidency.

6. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics • Wilson was the second democratic president since 1861. His look was intellectual with clean cut features; also he had pinched on eye glasses, and a trim figure. He was born in Virginia shortly before the Civil War and reared in Georgia and the Carolinas. He was the first president since Zachery Taylor to be from the seceded states. • Wilson was the son of a minister. He grew up in an atmosphere of piety. He later used the presidential pulpit to preach his political sermons. Using his voice he relied on using a persuasive voice, no arm waving but using sincerity and moral appeal.

7. Wilson: The Idealist in Politics • A profound student of government, Wilson believed that the chief executive should play a dynamic role. He was convinced that Congress could not function unless the president got out in front and provided leadership. • Wilson’s personality was that he suffered from serious defects of personality. He would be jovial and witty in private, and standoffish in public. His academic background caused him to feel most at home with scholars, although he had to work with politicians. He also looked down his nose at those who had lesser minds as well.

8. Wilson Tackles the Tariff • Few presidents have arrived at the White House with a clearer program than Wilson’s or one destined to be so completely achieved. The new president called for an all-out assault on what he called the triple wall of privilege: the tariff, the banks, and the trusts. • He tackled the tariff first and passed the Underwood Tariff which provided for substantial reduction of rates. This new bill reduced import fees. It also was a landmark in tax legislation. Under authority granted by the recently ratified 16th amendment, beginning with a levy on incomes over 3000, which is higher than the average family’s income.

9. Wilson Battle the Bankers • In June 1913 the president delivered a stirring plea for sweeping reform of the banking system. He endorsed Democratic proposals for a decentralized bank in government hands, as opposed to Republican demands for a huge private bank with 15 branches. • Wilson scored in 1913 he signed the Federal Reserve Act, the most important piece of legislation between the Civil War and the New Deal. This Act oversaw a nationwide system of 12 districts, each with its own central bank. The board was also empowered to issue paper money backed by commercial paper, such as promissory notes of business people. • The Federal Reserve Act was a red letter achievement. It carried the nation with flying banners through the financial crisis of the First World War.

10. The President Tames the Trusts • Wilson then went after the trusts. Early in 1914 he again went before Congress in a personal appearance that still carried drama. Congress responded in 1914 with a Federal Trade Commission that empowered a presidentially appointed commission to turn a searchlight on industries engaged in interstate commerce, such as meatpackers. • The commissioners were expected to crush monopolies by routing all unfair trades, false advertising, mislabeling, and bribery. Then the know was further cut by the Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914, which lengthened Sherman’s Anti-Trust act which lists practices that were objectionable, including price discrimination, and interlocking directorates which was achieved through holding companies.

11. The President Tames the Trusts • The Clayton Act therefore sought to exempt labor and agricultural organizations from antitrust prosecution while legalizing strikes and peaceful picketing. Years’ later conservative judges in later years continued to clip the wings of the union movement.

12. Wilsonian Progressivism At High Tide • Wilson knew that he had to be re-elected in 1916, he needed to identify himself clearly as the candidate of progressivism. He appeased business people by making conservative appointments to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal trade commission, but he devoted most of his energy to more progressive support. • Wilson’s election in 1912 had been a fluke, owing largely to the Taft-Roosevelt split in the Republican ranks. To remain in the White House, the president would have to woo the Bull Moose voters into the Democratic fold.

13. New Directions in Foreign Policy • In one important area, Wilson chose not to answer the call of the bull mousers'. In contrast to Roosevelt and even Taft, Wilson recoiled from an aggressive foreign policy. Hating imperialism he was repelled by TR’s big stickism. • In 1914, Wilson persuaded Congress to repeal the Panama Canal Tolls Act of 1912, which had exempted American coastwise shipping from tolls and provoked protests from Britain. He also signed the Jones Act which granted the Philippines territorial status and promised independence as soon as a stable government could be established. Not until 30 years later did this happen.

14. New Directions in Foreign Policy • Political turmoil in Haiti soon forced Wilson to eat some of his anti-imperialistic words. Disorder came in 1914-1915 when an outraged Haitian population tore through the president. In 1915 Wilson dispatched marines to protect American lives and property. • They remained there for 19 years, making Haiti American protectorate. In this instance he stole a page from Roosevelt and his Monroe Doctrine. In 1917, Wilson purchased from Denmark the Virgin Islands, in the West Indies as well. The Caribbean Sea, to now the Panama Canal, was taking on the earmarks of an American preserve.

15. Thunder Across the Sea • Europe blew up in the summer of 1914, when a Serb patriot killed the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungry in Sarajevo. An outraged Vienna government, backed by Germany presented an ultimatum in Serbia. • A huge chain reaction followed, tiny Serbia backed by Russia refused to bend. The Russian tsar began to mobilize his war machine, menacing Germany on the east, even as ally France confronted Germany on the west. The Germans struck at France through Belgium. Their main focus was to knock out their enemy so that it would free them up to knock out Russia. Great Britain was sucked in on the side of France. • Overnight most of Europe was locked in a fight to the death. On one side the Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungry, and later Turkey and Bulgaria. On the other side the Allied Powers: France, Great Britain, and Russia, and later Japan and Italy. America felt at this point, felt strong, snug, smug, and secure- but not for long.

17. A Precarious Neutrality • President Wilson’s grief at the outbreak of war was compounded by the recent death of his wife. He called on Americans to be neutral, and this is going to be proven difficult. • Both sides wanted the United States to be on their side. The British enjoyed the close cultural, economic ties with America and had the added advantage of controlling most of the transatlantic cables. • The Germans counted on the natural sympathies of their transplanted countrymen in America. Including persons with at least one foreign born parent, people with blood ties to the Central Powers numbered some 11 million in 1914. • Most Americans were anti-German form the outset. Kaiser Wilhelm II seemed the embodiment of arrogant autocracy, an impression strengthened by Germany’s ruthless strike at neutral Belgium. German and Austrian powers further tarnished their image when they resorted to violence in American factories and ports. Yet the majority of Americans at this point wanted to stay out of the war.

18. America Earns Blood Money • When Europe was in flames in 1914, the United States was bogged down with a business recession. British and French war orders soon pulled American industry out of the hard times and onto a peak of war-born prosperity. Immense trade happened during this time, and brought in 2.3 million into America. • Germany wanted to trade with America, but what stopped them was the British navy. The British at this point was now controlling the sea, and after much protest and forcing American vessels off the high seas and into their ports. This harassment of American shipping proved highly effective, as trade between Germany and the United States virtually ceased.

19. America Earns Blood Money • Germany in retaliation for the blockade announced a submarine war area surrounded the British Isles. The submarine was a weapon so new that existing international law could not be made to fit it. The old rule that a warship must stop and board a merchantman could hardly apply to submarines which could be rammed or sunk if they surfaced. • The German submarines known as U-boats began their deadly work. In the first months they sank about 90 ships in the war zone. Then the submarine issue became an issue when Lithuania was torpedoed and sank of the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915, with the loss of 1,198 lives, which included 128 Americans. • With many other ships being destroyed, Wilson informed the Germans that unless they renounced the inhuman practice of sinking merchant ships without warning, he would break diplomatic relations-an almost certain prelude to war.

20. Wilson Wins Re-Election in 1916 • The presidential election of 1916 was looming and progressives nominated Roosevelt, which at this time they were calling him Teddy. Wilson was nominated by the Democrats in St. Louis, and his campaign slogan was: “He kept us out of War”. But on Election Day a dark horse name Hughes swept through the east and it looked as though he was the surefire winner. Wilson went to bed that night prepared to accept defeat, while the New York newspapers displayed huge portraits of Hughes as the new president elect. • The rest of the country turned the tide and most of the Westerners and Mid-Westerners loved Wilson’s progressive reforms and antiwar policies. The final result was hinged on California. Wilson barely came through with a final vote of 277 to 254 in the Electoral College. Wilson had not expected that his promise to keep America out of war, but it was enough that it ensured him his victory. Their hopeful expectations were soon rudely shattered.