Wilson’s Missteps

Along with my congratulations to Mr. Romero may I also applaud his assurance that the late President Wilson must be spinning in his grave! Many who interacted with Wilson must have also contributed to his eternal unrest. One I myself heard at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs in the late 1950s was George Kennan, whose courage I continue admire, having dared to take the great Princetonian down at that venue.

I do not share Romero’s concern about Wilson’s racism, something shared in his day with most Americans indeed and still shared by many. I view Wilson rather in his role prior to World War I, his role at the Paris Peace Conference, and thereafter. Having resisted the imperialistic and bombastic push for war by such worthies as Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson failed to persevere. He became persuaded, when he could have continued resisting the temptation, that Germany was a threat to peace and democracy. This was in my view foolish and Wilson’s role as one of the Big Four continued to be foolish. He was bamboozled by the British and French leaders, he unwisely thought that democratic and humanitarian goals could overcome the selfishness and even viciousness of the allied leaders and their associates. He approved a peace which he thought his League Of Nations could make workable when actually even the League itself was not workable. Thus in many ways he lost the chance of making America truly influential and truly a force for all that could be good in world affairs. His was the failure that make the next 20 years a march to even greater warfare and disaster.

But concern about Wilson’s Southern temperament seems more persuasive today than Wilson’s foolishness and lack of understanding of his allies and of his opponents alike.