Woodrow Wilson – H.W. Brand

As dire as things look now there was a time not a hundred years ago when they were worse. During the First World War this country was basically a fascist state. The government was indirectly controlling a huge portion of our economy and tens of thousands of people were imprisoned for speaking out against the government. For the last eight years I had to listen to people yelp about there speech being suppressed, but they never seemed to have a problem finding a soapbox to stand on. During Wilson’s presidency people were actually imprisoned for speaking there mind.

And what was Wilson? A Republican? A man of the right? Nope he was a Democrat, but more than that he was a progressive. Remember when Hillary complained about being called a liberal that she preferred the term progressive? Well it was a progressive presidency that ended up imprisoning tens of thousands of his critics. People who a few short years before were his supporters. In my mind there were many other reasons to despise Wilson but that one sticks in your mind.

I got the book for Christmas, it wasn’t a joke, I asked for it. Dad was a little indignant that I had asked for a biography of Democrat but there is a very good reason. The most curious thing about the Wilson presidency is that after such a swing to the dark side, the country swung back. I figured I need to study the dark before I could figure out how we came back to the light.

The book is part of a series The American Presidents they are all short volumes edited by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. I absorbed it in one sitting and enjoyed it so much I’m thinking about trying to pick up the others in the series. It would be a nice way to fill in the many gaps in my knowledge of American history without that big an investment of time and money.

As you would expect in a series like this the book is not very critical, but it doesn’t paint Wilson as a saint either like some of the other material I’ve been reading about him. Reading of his stroke and death left me with mixed emotions about the man. In a way there was much to admire and his rhetoric could be stirring but the policies he enacted in office and what they inspired a decade later I find despicable.