Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Madison Norment
 

   Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born on December 28, 1856 in Staunton, Virginia. FHe spent his education years at many different schools. One year at Davidson College in North Carolina, three at Princeton University where he received a baccalaureate degree in 1879. He graduated from Law School at the University of Virginia. Then later he went on and practiced for a few years in Atlanta, Georgia but it was a feeble practice. A while longer he entered graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in 1883 and three years later he received the doctorate.

   In 1885 he published the Congressional Government. It analyzed the difficulties arising from the separation of the legislative and executive powers in the American Constitution.
He entered politics as a governor of the State of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. In 1912 Wilson won the presidential election. Thomas was set on instituting the reforms he had out line which included: changing the tariff, revising of the banking system, checking monopolies, fraudulent advertising, and prohibiting of unfair business practices.

   When WWI had started he wanted to remain neutral. He protested British as well as German acts but he offered both sides mediation but was rebuffed. In 1917 issues with the freedom of the seas began and a change was needed. On January 31 Germany announced that unrestricted submarine warfare was already started. Then on March 27 after four American ships had been sunk Wilson decided to ask for a declaration of war. April 2 he made formal requests to congress then four days later on April 6 congress granted it.

   January 8, 1918 he gave congress a speech on his fourteen points. It was a decisive stroke in winning that war for the people everywhere, for in his peace was the vision of a world in which freedom, justice, and peace can flourish. In 1919 Peace Conference assembled in Versailles. Wilson had failed to carry his total conception of peace. He did secure the adoption of the League of Nations.

   Woodrow Wilson’s major failure was when the senate declined to approve American acceptance of the League of Nations. This happened because he lost his long ruling control over congress after he made the congressional election of 1918, from his failure to appoint to the American peace delegation, for his unwillingness to compromise when some minor compromises might well have carried the day, from his physical incapacity in the days just prior to the vote. That was from strain of massive effort he made to obtain the support of the American people for the ratification of the Covenant of the League of Nations.

   After a speech in Pueblo Colorado on September 25, 1919 he collapsed and a week later suffered a cerebral hemorrhage from the effects of which he never fully recovered.