The Evil Woodrow Wilson
May 19, 2025
Why did America abandon its
traditional foreign policy of non-involvement in European power
politics? With some exceptions, that was America’s foreign policy from
the founding of our Republic to the end of the nineteenth century. when
America’s pursuit of Empire began. The traditional policy was
encapsulated in John Quincy Adams’s famous declaration in his
Independence Day Oration of July 4, 1821 that “America goes not abroad
in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom
and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her
own. She will recommend the general cause by the countenance of her
voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by
once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the
banners of foreign Independence, she would involve herself beyond the
power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of
individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and
usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy
would insensibly change from liberty to force. The
frontlet upon her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor
of Freedom and Independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted
an Imperial Diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky
radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the
world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”
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Of course, Wilson can’t be blamed for our pursuit of Empire in 1898. The primary responsibility for that lies with Theodore Roosevelt and his allies. But the policy of involvement in European power politics took a giant step forward when Wilson, an inveterate Anglophile, followed an unneutral course of conduct after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914. In spite of urging America to be neutral in thought, word, and deed, Wilson soon tilted our foreign policy toward the British cause. He insisted that the Germans strictly respect American neutrality while colluding with the illegal British hunger blockade of Germany, a blockade responsible for a vast number of deaths from starvation.
As Laurence White points out, relying on a book by Malcom Magee,
“Wilson, who supported the views of his uncle James Woodrow on Theistic
Darwinism, ‘believed the United States was divinely chosen to do God’s
will on earth.’ The United States was the ‘redeemer nation’ destined by
God to ‘instruct and lead the world.’ While president of Princeton,
Wilson said in a speech that the mighty task before us was ‘to make the
United States a mighty Christian nation, and to Christianize the world.’
Wilson viewed himself as ‘the divinely appointed messenger.’ The United
States was his parish, and he would ‘be an evangelist, a missionary,
for the export of Christian democracy.’ He compared himself to the
prophet Ezekiel. He equated patriotism with Christianity and the United
States with God’s chosen people. What is of most interest in What the World Should Be
( Magee’s book) is how Wilson viewed himself and the United States
during World War I. He said soon after the war began that it ‘may have
been a godsend.’ Comments Magge: ‘He was unshaken by the conflict since,
despite the carnage, it seemed to open possibilities for his own
mission to bring God’s order to the world. He was called by God.’ Being
‘predisposed to be an Anglophile,’ Wilson interpreted information ‘in a
way that favored British interests and penalized Germany while
continuing to believe that he and the country were being absolutely
neutral.’ Wilson had some strange ideas about neutrality. His ‘active’
neutrality ‘allowed America to act on behalf of the righteous.’ The
United States would ‘use its power as an aggressive neutral to conquer
the forces of disorder and selfishness in the world on all sides.’
Wilson referred to his policy of neutrality as the ‘peaceful conquest of
the world’ U.S. neutrality would ‘conquer, convert, and change the
nations.’ The United States was chosen by God to be the ‘mediating
nation of the world.’ America was the ‘house of the Lord’ and the ‘city
on a hill.’ The entrance of the United States into the war meant
‘salvation’ to the Allies. Wilson believed in using ‘neutral force
to mediate peace.’ Even as American soldiers were dying in Europe, the
United States was ‘neutral in spirit’ in fighting a ‘righteous war.’
Naturally, before he led the country into war, Wilson advocated an
increase in the military, the reserves, and military spending, but
‘purely for defense.’ If war became necessary, it ‘must be a peacemaking
war’ He wanted a ‘new international order’ that would prevent such a
war from happening in the future. The Versailles Treaty would allow him
as president to ‘do great good for the downtrodden inhabitants of the
world.’ The paternalistic Wilson had a tendency to ‘see the nonwhite
peoples as being in need of instruction.’”
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If the United States had remained neutral in World War I, it is very likely that a negotiated settlement would have brought the war to an end. In that case, the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires would have remained in place, and Hitler never come to power. Instead, Wilson demanded that Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicate and end the German monarchy before he would consent to negotiate an armistice. He also insisted that the Austro-Hungarian Empire come to an end, thus unleashing the conflicts among rival ethnic nationalist movements that did so much to cause World War II.
Wilson
said that the League of Nations, his pet project, would ensure lasting
peace. Instead, it cemented in place the harsh terms of the Treaty of
Versailles. As the great historian Ralph Raico noted in a lecture, “The
world then, after 1919, when the conference takes place, seems to be
pretty much under British and French control. The high point of British
and French imperialism is reached—the greatest extent of the British and
French Empires. And then they set up the League of Nations. Why was the
League of Nations set up? As you know, the League of Nations was set up
for all good things. There is not a good thing that the League of
Nations was not set up for, right? There is another way of looking at
this, which is this: Once the treaties of Paris are signed, what do we
have in the world? We have established British and French world
hegemony—British and French control of the world (with the possible
assistance of the United States, if the U.S. is interested). But Germany
has been demolished. Russia is involved in turmoil—it’s not going to be
a problem for a long time. The British and French have come to the
apogee of their empires. And now, let us freeze that for all time. Let
us set up an international organization with all the power of all the
international community behind it, which says that any crossing of any
boundary is an act of aggression which is to be answered by the whole
world community. And what have you got then? You have, locked in for all
time, British and French control of the world. That’s, as I say, an
alternative view of what the League of Nations amounted to.” Raico
rated Wilson as our worst president, and it is easy to understand why.
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