Gautam Mukunda wrote:
> > Not to get into the argument, but I actually think that Woodrow > Wilson was the second-worst President in American history, > after only the pathetic James Buchanan... > Really. How do you justify that? I would think that despite the fact that he was a bigot that he would at least rank near the middle of the pack. -- Doug The bigot is a large part of that, of course. Wilson was probably the most racist President of the 20th Century - he might well have been the most racist President since (once again) the unlamented James Buchanan. He actually served to move the status of African Americans _backwards_ by a considerable margin. Even after that, however, I would have to rate him as nothing better than a disaster as President. Once he got us _into_ the First World War (a decision with which I agree, I hasten to add) his performance was nothing short of disastrous. He refused to use the United States' immense leverage as the balancing power between the Allied and Central Powers to create a worthwhile settlement. His rhetoric convinced the Germans that they would get a generous peace, but he was then too inept in diplomatic negotiations to carry it through, and he thus contributed a great deal to Germany's sense of betrayal and grievance, setting the stage for Hitler's rise. The Versailles Treaty that was eventually negotiated was an unmitigated disaster (more on that later). The only thing that might have redeemed it was America's active participation in the post-War security structure. This became impossible because Wilson was too stubborn and too politically inept to negotiate a settlement with his political opponents in the US (the vision of American membership in the League of Nations stopped by isolationist opponents of Wilson is completely wrong - in fact many of Wilson's opponents were every bit as internationalist as he was, they just interpreted that differently). So he managed to create the worst of all possible worlds in the final settlement - one that was too generous to forever suppress German nationalism, and too harsh to reconcile Germany to the European system, while removing the most powerful state in the world from any significant role in the European balance of power. Finally, back to Versailles. The full consequences of Wilson's mistakes can really be seen in the recently completed sequence of wars in the Balkans. Wilson was the first world statesman to publically advocate the one nation-one state theory of political identity. His (spotty) adherence to and (consistent) rhetorical advocacy of the idea legitimized it in the global debate and his support for it in the Versailles Treaty gave it some standing in international norms and practices. He played a large part in making constructs like the Austro-Hungarian Empire (an ethnic melange that had nevertheless been fairly effective in terms of governance for centuries) virtually impossible and bears a good deal of the responsibility for the internecine ethnic warfare that is a characteristic of post World War II politics, but was not, in fact, a characteristic of pre World War I history. I hesitate to get into psychological analysis except in cases of clear irrationality - and Wilson's beliefs were not irrational, just misguided. But it does seem to me at least plausible that the roots for Wilson's beliefs go back to his deep-seated racism. He really didn't believe in a multi-ethnic United States - how could he think any other country could function that way? Whether that is true or not, however, is immaterial. It seems to me that the actual results of his actions speak for themselves, and are most striking for the scale of their failure. Gautam
