Woodrow Wilson took office on March 4, 1913, exactly 100 years ago. He has never quite entered the pantheon of iconic presidents—no head on Mount Rushmore or memorial in Washington. Today, if anything, Wilson comes down to us as a bit bland and remote, a former university president and the bespectacled son of a Presbyterian minister. But in his day he was among the most controversial presidents in American history, sending millions of American troops to Europe in World War I and laying the groundwork for the United Nations.
In the century since his inauguration, the mild-looking Wilson has been labeled everything from Christ-like hero to Hitler-like villain. Today the argument over Wilson is still very much alive—and offers a striking picture of the wild swings and strange afterlife of political reputations.
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He was also a racist who expanded segregation into the federal government and no friend of the working person ~ he had Helen Keller (wrongly NOT remembered for her pro-labor activism) thrown in jail.
No friend of the First Amendment, Wilson also oversaw the most extensive U.S. government program (up to that time) of propaganda, through the Creel Committee, and the harshest program of censorhsip, both during WWI. Wilson also signed the Sedition Act of 1918, which made the expression of certain ideas a crime -- for the first time since the expiration of the Sedition Act of 1798, signed by John Adams. Wilson's multiple assaults on press freedom deserve to be much better known.
--Prof. Chris Daly