Woodrow Wilson

Birth-Death: (1856 - 1924 ) Term: (1913-1921 )

The United States went through a period of nostaligic reform. Old ideas were merged with the new administration, resulting in four new amendments. Shortly after Wilson was elected for his first term, World War I broke out in Europe. The official reaction of the United States was neutrality. Things did not proceed along those lines, however. The United States was selling supplies to both sides of the war, and in doing so, was caught up in the war itself. The critical point was reached when victory was doubtful, and the United States wanted Great Britain to be on the winning side, as the U.S. had heavily invested in Great Britain's war efforts. In 1917, Congress declared war on Germany.

Major Events with Woodrow Wilson

1913-1920 - Progressive Amendments (16th, 17th, 18th, 19th)

    The Progressive Amendment cluster shows the reform attitude of the people during this period. The sixteenth amendment was actually ratified about a month before Wilson took office. It gave the Congress the power to establish a federal income tax.

    The seventeenth amendment was ratified in May of 1913. It provided for the Direct Election of the United States Senators. This was one of the issues of the Omaha Platform proposed in 1892 by the Populists in order to expand the power of the common man.

    The eighteenth amendment was ratified in late 1919. It outlawed the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors." This amendment had been proposed many times earlier by the Women's Christian Temperance Union, however, it was not until the liberal attitude of the 1910s and the shortage of grain with the raging war in Europe that it had enough votes to pass.

    The nineteenth amendment had been a culmination of a prolonged fight that began in 1848 with the Seneca Falls convention. By the terms of the amendment women were finally given the right to vote in the national elections. Individual western states had given women the right to vote years earlier, however it was not until the 1920 election that women voted for the President and Vice President of the United States.

1913 - Underwood Tariff

    The Underwood Tariff was the first major reduction of the tariff in more than half a century. One of the reasons it passed was the ratification of the income tax amendment. This way the revenue that was usually received from the tariff was not lost. About a month after the tariff was passed, the war in Europe started and the tariff was soon an insignificant source of revenue. Even after the war, it could not compare to the income produced by the income tax amendment.

1913 - Federal Reserve System

    Wilson suggested a new banking system to Congress, so that "the control of this system . . . must be public, not private . . . so that the banks may be the instruments, not the masters of business and of individual enterprise and initiative." The Federal Reserve Act divided the nation into twelve districts with one major bank in each one of those districts. All national banks had to join the system and deposit six percent of their capital in these banks. The Federal Reserve banks were banks strictly for banks - they did not do business with the private sector.

    A Federal Reserve Board of eight members appointed by the President supervised the system. The main goal of the board was to regulate the interest rates charged the member banks for loans.

1914 - Clayton Anti-Trust Act

    The Clayton Anti-Trust Act was passed to correct the weaknesses of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. The act forbade the following: interlocking directorates, ownership of stock in a corporation by a competitor corporation, price cutting to eliminate a competitor, and many other business practices. Furthermore, it provided that the law does not apply to unions, forbade the issue of injunctions unless in emergency situations, and legalized boycotts and peaceful strikes.

1918 - Fourteen Points

    President Wilson campaigned for Fourteen Points, his plan for European and world peace. He suggested that all agreements should be in the open, absolute freedom of the seas in times of peace and in times of war, removal of all trade barriers (including tariffs and quotas), reduction of armaments, self determination of the "freed" peoples, and the creation of an international association to control these rules and help prevent peace.

    Unfortunately, even after Wilson convinced the European leaders to accept his plans, he lost support in the United States. The nation was becoming more and more conservative and did not want too see more Americans killed in far away lands for an incomprehensible cause, possibly even under the command of foreign generals. The treaty was voted on several times in the Senate, but due to the high opposition and unwillingness of Wilson to compromise, it was never ratified.