Happy Birthday Dear Woody
On December 28, 1856, 154 years ago today, Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, the third of four children of the Reverend Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Jessie Janet Woodrow. He served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. With Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft splitting the Republican Party vote in the 1912 election, Wilson was elected President. He is the only U.S. President to hold a Ph.D. degree. While at Wesleyan University he also coached the football team.
In Wilson's first term as President, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and America's first-ever federal income tax in the Revenue Act of 1913. Wilson brought many white Southerners into his administration, and tolerated their expansion of segregation in many federal agencies. He was re-elected in 1916, and his second term was primarily concerned with the first world war. He based his re-election campaign around the slogan "he kept us out of war", but in April 1917 he asked Congress to declare war following the sinking of several US ships by Germany.
In 1917, Wilson brought about the United States' first draft since the American Civil War and raised billions of dollars in war funding through Liberty Bonds. In the late stages of the war, Wilson took personal control of negotiations with Germany, including the armistice. He went to Paris in 1919 to create the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1919, during the bitter fight with the Republican-controlled Senate over the U.S. joining the League of Nations, He refused to compromise, effectively destroying any chance for ratification. The League of Nations was established anyway, but the United States never joined.
On October 2, 1919, Wilson suffered a serious stroke that left him paralyzed on his left side and blind in his left eye. He was confined to bed for weeks, sequestered from nearly everyone but his wife and his physician. He was kept out of the presence of Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, his cabinet and Congressional visitors to the White House for the remainder of his term. His wife, Edith, served as his steward, selecting issues for his attention and delegating other issues to his cabinet heads. Eventually, Wilson did resume his attendance at cabinet meetings, but his was one of the most serious cases of presidential disability in American history.The full extent of his disability was kept from the public until after his death on February 3, 1924.
One more obscure fact about Woody that most (all) of us will probably never get to know from personal experience: his face is on the hundred thousand dollar bill.
In Wilson's first term as President, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and America's first-ever federal income tax in the Revenue Act of 1913. Wilson brought many white Southerners into his administration, and tolerated their expansion of segregation in many federal agencies. He was re-elected in 1916, and his second term was primarily concerned with the first world war. He based his re-election campaign around the slogan "he kept us out of war", but in April 1917 he asked Congress to declare war following the sinking of several US ships by Germany.
In 1917, Wilson brought about the United States' first draft since the American Civil War and raised billions of dollars in war funding through Liberty Bonds. In the late stages of the war, Wilson took personal control of negotiations with Germany, including the armistice. He went to Paris in 1919 to create the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1919, during the bitter fight with the Republican-controlled Senate over the U.S. joining the League of Nations, He refused to compromise, effectively destroying any chance for ratification. The League of Nations was established anyway, but the United States never joined.
On October 2, 1919, Wilson suffered a serious stroke that left him paralyzed on his left side and blind in his left eye. He was confined to bed for weeks, sequestered from nearly everyone but his wife and his physician. He was kept out of the presence of Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, his cabinet and Congressional visitors to the White House for the remainder of his term. His wife, Edith, served as his steward, selecting issues for his attention and delegating other issues to his cabinet heads. Eventually, Wilson did resume his attendance at cabinet meetings, but his was one of the most serious cases of presidential disability in American history.The full extent of his disability was kept from the public until after his death on February 3, 1924.
One more obscure fact about Woody that most (all) of us will probably never get to know from personal experience: his face is on the hundred thousand dollar bill.