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Woodrow Wilson: the New Freedom, the war, and the myths

The progressive president who gave America the Federal Reserve, took it into the Great War, and dreamed of the League of Nations: his adviser Colonel House, the segregation of the government, the hidden presidency after his stroke...

Figures Woodrow Wilson

8 newly added in the last 14 days

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    Colonel House, Wilson's silent partner

    Edward M. House, a Texan who held no office and went by the honorary title Colonel, became Wilson's closest adviser and personal envoy, shaping foreign policy and the peace talks. His novel Philip Dru imagined a benevolent dictator remaking America, which later writers seized on; his real power, though, was simply that of a trusted confidant.

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    The myth of Wilson the Freemason debunked

    Woodrow Wilson is often listed among Masonic presidents, but he was not a Freemason. A devout Presbyterian and the son of a minister, he held no Masonic membership; the claim is a persistent and documented error.

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    Wilson segregates the federal government

    Soon after taking office, Wilson's administration segregated federal offices and workplaces and pushed Black civil servants out of their posts. He also screened the pro-Klan film The Birth of a Nation at the White House. It was among the darkest parts of a self-styled progressive presidency.

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    The fabricated Federal Reserve regret debunked

    A quote widely shared online has Wilson lamenting that he had unwittingly ruined his country by creating the Federal Reserve. It is a fabrication, stitched from unrelated passages of his 1913 book The New Freedom, which never mentioned the Fed. Wilson recorded no such regret.

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    Wilson's Fourteen Points

    also in World order: the transnational forums

    President Woodrow Wilson set out fourteen principles for peace in an address to Congress, including open diplomacy, free trade, and a general association of nations. His wartime rhetoric of a world made safe for democracy shaped the postwar settlement.

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    Wilson's stroke and the hidden presidency

    A severe stroke left Wilson partly paralysed and secluded for the rest of his term. His wife Edith decided who and what reached him and effectively managed the flow of government, a genuine hidden presidency the public was never told about.

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