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Thinkers and political figures

Photographic portrait of President Woodrow Wilson.

Portrait: Harris & Ewing, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain

Woodrow Wilson

Country
United States
Era
1856–1924
Tradition
Progressive liberalism, liberal internationalism

President who built the Federal Reserve and the modern regulatory state, took America into the First World War on a programme of national self-determination and collective security — and imposed racial segregation across the federal civil service.

01

Documented positions

Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.

  • Created the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Trade Commission and the first federal income tax under the Sixteenth Amendment
  • Set out the Fourteen Points, making national self-determination and open diplomacy the basis of the post-war settlement
  • Proposed and campaigned for the League of Nations, which the Senate refused to join
  • Signed the Clayton Antitrust Act, exempting unions from antitrust prosecution, and the first federal child labour law
  • Introduced racial segregation across federal departments and dismissed Black civil servants
  • Signed the Espionage and Sedition Acts, under which critics of the war were imprisoned
02

Where it sits on each dimension

Wealth and inequality

42

Evidence: Well documented

The state in the economy

40

Evidence: Well documented

Personal liberty

28

Evidence: Well documented

Tradition and change

30

Evidence: Well documented

Nation and the world

22

Evidence: Well documented

Religion and the state

55

Evidence: Documented

Power and its limits

50

Evidence: Documented

Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Environment and growth, Crime and punishment

Sources

  • Woodrow Wilson, Address to Congress: The Fourteen Points · 1918
  • John Milton Cooper Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography · Knopf · 2009

Last verified: