Woodrow Wilson: President (Presidential Biography Series)

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Summary: The pivotal presidency of Thomas Woodrow Wilson
Review: For this volume in the Presidential Biography Series author Sallie G. Randolph presents Thomas Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States as a study in contrasts. Wilson became president at a pivotal period in American history in which the United States emerged as a major world power. On the domestic side there were labor reform issues, the need to overhaul the banking system, problems of international trade and tariffs, and the threat of world war. Elected to the White House as a relative political newcomer, having served only two years as governor of New Jersey, Wilson had been raised in the privileged class but also taught to fight for the needs of the common folk. While this outraged his political associates and the party bosses of the Democratic party, it also established Wilson as a courageous leader.

Randolph presents Wilson as a dream and an idealist who tried to avoid American involvment in the First World War and then became a capable war time president. More importantly, throughout the war Wilson worked towards a lasting peace and his plans for the League of Nations are presented as being far ahead of his time. This juvenile biography begins with the U.S. on "The Bitter Brink of War," showing Wilson and the country at a significant crossroads. Even before going into the biographical details of Wilson's life, Randolph presents a verdict on Wilson, picking a quotation from Wilson's political archeney, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who stopped the president on his way out of the House chamber after giving the speech in which he asked Congress to decalre war: "Mr. President, you have expressed in the loftiest manner possible the sentiments of the American people." But Randolph ends the chapter with the president weeping over the heartarche and tragedy that lay ahead.

This juvenile biography focuses on the idea that Wilson took the high road throughout his political life and that in many ways he was too good to be president. Or, to put it another way, that the nation had the right man in the right place at the right time and failed to take advantage of his leadership. This idea is based on the widespread assumption that if the United States had joined the League of Nations, the Second World War could have been avoided. That is certainly an interesting point to debate, but even if that is clearly overstating the case, it does not take away from the universal consensus that Wilson was right in advocating the formation of an international organization dedicated to settling disputes in a more peaceful manner than nation states have been inclined to use in the past. Whatever failings the United Nations has had, there has not been a third world war, and in many ways that has been the organization's highest mandate.

Certainly young readers will appreciate the irony of an American president who was more popular around the world than he was in his own country. Randolph does a nice job of putting Wilson's presidency in both the context of his own time as well as our own, which sees his years in the White House as being a pivotal period in American history. I also like the way that Randolph, whose background is more of a jouranlist than a historian, often employs quotations from Wilson, his supporters, and his detractors, to make points. This 124-page volume is illustrated with historical photographs from Wilson's personal and public life, and an index, but there are not other supplemental sections in the back of this book.