The Supposedly 'Progressive' Woodrow Wilson Was Far from Admirable

Throughout the 20th century Progressive Democrats revered the 28th president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, who held office from 1913 to 1921.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served as the assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson administration, embraced his hero’s progressive conviction that the nation had to be run by a huge administrative state.

When FDR entered the halls of Congress to declare war on Japan on Dec. 8, 1941, he was accompanied by Mrs. Edith Wilson.

Harry Truman and John Kennedy hung Wilson’s portrait in the White House in places of honor. Both frequently quoted him. JFK invited Mrs. Wilson to his Jan. 21, 1961 Inaugural.

But in the 21st century the aura around Wilson has faded.

Reputable historians and biographers have revealed that Wilson had serious personal and ideological flaws.

They revealed that his comments and policies were racist and misogynistic.

A new biography, "Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn," by former congressman and chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox, focuses on the former president’s character flaws.

Born in 1856 in Staunton, Virginia, Wilson spent his formative years in South Carolina.

His father Joseph, a minister, backed secession and founded the Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America.

The Reverend Wilson in a published collection of his sermons stated, "the Bible brings human slavery under the sanctions of divine authority."

Slavery was not sinful but something to "cherish."

Years later, when Wilson was president of Princeton (1902-1912) he said, "Slavery itself was not so dark a thing as it was painted." Many enslaved people "were little worse off for it." As for the outlawing of slavery, Wilson argued it "invaded the privileges of self-government."

Wilson frowned upon the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude.

"The backers of the 13^th Amendment 'who saw the Rights of Man involved' did not realize, he insisted 'the great mass of the Negro people' had been better off when 'under slavery they had been shielded' from 'the rough buffets of freedom.'"

Wilson also whined that: the "extraordinary," "radical," and "revolutionary" constitutional amendment "[gave] the Negroes political privilege" while subjecting "the white men of the South [to] utter humiliation."

Opposed to post-Civil War reconstruction policies, Wilson wrote in his multi-volume "History of the American People," "It was the mere instinct of self-representation that forced the white men of the South to do everything within their power to restore white supremacy by means fair or foul."

One foul means to maintain white supremacy was the activities of the Ku Klux Klan.

Believe it or not, Wilson’s sympathized with their racist cause. Klansman, in Wilson’s judgment, Cox writes, "come across more as misunderstood romantics and picaresques than murderers and hate criminals.

"He wrote with seeming compassion of these outlaws as the 'real leaders of Southern communities' — white men who, shut out of suffrage, 'could act only by private combination.'"

While Wilson conceded that Klansmen "took the law into their own hands" he claimed they had no choice. They undertook "by intimidation what they were not allowed to attempt by the ballot."

Wilson, who permitted a private showing of the racist pro-Klan film D.W. Griffith's, "The Birth of the Nation," said the KKK was founded “for the mere pleasure of association, for private amusement.”

And their secrecy, Wilson maintained, was merely one of the "pranks they played."

"The white mask, a tall cardboard hat, the figures of man and horse sheeted like a ghost . . . put thought of mischief into the minds of frolicking comrades."

In an 1881 opinion piece printed in the New York Evening Post, "Stray thoughts from the South," Wilson opined that "the determination of the Saxon race of the South that the Negro race shall never again rule over them [was] not unnatural, and it is necessarily unalterable."

To ensure that Black Americans did not rule, President Wilson ordered the re-segregation of the District of Columbia, and he replaced Black government employees in the Capitol with white workers.

Furthermore, Wilson was a nativist.

He opposed immigration from Eastern Europe and Italy.

He feared the country was being "corrupted by the infusion of foreign elements" that would taint "our English blood."

They were "shiftless classes."

As for women, Wilson opposed to his dying day giving them the right to vote. He wrote that it is "indisputably true that universal suffrage is a constant element of weakness."

Cox notes that Wilson, "made plain his view that it is men, not women, who define the national character." Women were merely sentimental, and sentimentality, Wilson wrote, "is the beginning of the end."

Cox’s book, which took him 14 years to research and write, is an extraordinary exposé of the very dark side of the founder of the Democratic Party’s Progressive movement.

Perhaps it’s time for Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and all their progressive minions to deeply apologize to the American people for 100 years of idolizing someone who was anything but "progressive."

George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact," and "Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy." Read George J. Marlin's Reports — More Here.