Great Democrat Presidents of the Twentieth Century – Woodrow Wilson

It has been nearly two years since the beginning of the Iraq war and during that time the President and his administration have been viciously attacked by Democrats in the House and the Senate. During this time the Iraq war has repeatedly been compared to the Vietnam War and the families of the fallen have been told that their sacrifice has been for nothing - the war is a horrible mistake and the President is responsible for essentially murdering innocent Iraqis as well as US soldiers. The same people who have criticized the President so vocally are, most assuredly, fans of the great Democrat Presidents of the Twentieth Century, but how do these Democrat Presidents compare to George W. Bush? Lets take a look at the most important of the these presidents and their biggest historical contributions.

The first president that we should examine is Woodrow Wilson. Wilson is undoubtedly an important American president and accomplished many great things in office: notably child labor restriction and worker compensation. Wilson. However, had a dark side, he was a racist who wrote in support of the Klan and believed in the inferiority of African-Americans. He was an opponent of the US constitution and for a time believed it should be replaced with a European style parliamentary system. Wilson implemented the graduated income tax (which we all know and love) and began farm subsidies.

He ran for re-election in 1916 on a peace platform all the while knowing that the US would not be able to stay out of WWI. In fact, he used very weak provocations to declare war on Germany in 1917. Wilson’s 14 points would become the inspiration for Russian revolutionaries as well as German peace advocates. In fact, the main reason for the tragedy known as the Treaty of Versailles was Wilson’s 14 points and US involvement in the war. Without US involvement and Wilson’s speech the Germans would have been in a stronger position to resist draconian allied demands of the Treaty of Versailles. This, in turn, would have removed one of the major causes of WWII.

Wilson intervened repeatedly in Latin America - sending tropps to Mexico, Haiti, Cuba and others. He, also, sent troops to Siberia to fight the Bolsheviks. In all, Wilson is responsible for the deaths of nearly 200,000 Americans and untold numbers of innocent people in Europe and Latin America. He never liberated a single country and most of his military interventions were to support the status quo not to bring freedom and democracy to oppressed peoples. At home he imprisoned political rivals and destroyed unions. He presided over one of the largest expansions of government in American history. In the end this evaluation is an attempt to judge Wilson by the same standards that the media uses today to judge the performance of George W. Bush. Wilson sure doesn’t hold up well in this light.

Note: This article is full of exaggerations and over-simplifications. This is intentional. Today we tend to view very complicated domestic and international issues in the simplest possible way to allow people to understand them. Unfortunately it just leads to confusion and further misunderstanding. None of this matters because no one knows the truth about Wilson anyway. Go read a book, or two, about him.