Ask any knowledgeable conservative to identify their least-favorite president, and more and more the answer these days will come back: Woodrow Wilson! But this was not always so. For a long time FDR held the crown, but in the last generation a number of closer looks have come to recognize that Wilson, and the broader current of Progressive ideology he did so much to champion, is the real turning point (much for the worse) in American political and constitutional thought and practice.

This week Steve Hayward sat down with one of the pre-eminent interpreters of Wilson, R.J. Pestritto of Hillsdale College. R.J. is the author of one the very best books about Wilson’s rich political philosophy, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism. In this wide-ranging and fast-moving conversation, Steve and R.J. talk not only about what’s wrong with Wilson and his legacy, but why conservative thinkers missed his significance for such a long time.

And what’s a show about Progressivism without some progressive rock? Bumper music this week is “And You and I” from Yes, and “Mister Quality” (which Woodrow Wilson was not!) by Gentle Giant.

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Published in: Education, History, Politics

There are 7 comments.

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  1. Burwick Chiffswiddle Member
    Burwick Chiffswiddle
    @Kephalithos

    Unlike political progressivism, progressive rock is awesome.

    • #1
  2. FredGoodhue Coolidge
    FredGoodhue
    @FredGoodhue

    I’d like to hear a discussion of the differences between Teddy Roosevelt Progressivism and Woodrow Wilson Progressivism.

    • #2
  3. Steven Hayward Podcaster
    Steven Hayward
    @StevenHayward

    FredGoodhue (View Comment):

    I’d like to hear a discussion of the differences between Teddy Roosevelt Progressivism and Woodrow Wilson Progressivism.

    I can do that. Jean Yarbrough of Bowdoin College is an expert on that question.  I’ll try to book her soon.

    • #3
  4. FredGoodhue Coolidge
    FredGoodhue
    @FredGoodhue

    Steven Hayward (View Comment):

    FredGoodhue (View Comment):

    I’d like to hear a discussion of the differences between Teddy Roosevelt Progressivism and Woodrow Wilson Progressivism.

    I can do that. Jean Yarbrough of Bowdoin College is an expert on that question. I’ll try to book her soon.

    Thanks!  This is a subject I know next to nothing on.

    • #4
  5. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…
    @GumbyMark

    FredGoodhue (View Comment):

    I’d like to hear a discussion of the differences between Teddy Roosevelt Progressivism and Woodrow Wilson Progressivism.

    One difference is that the 1912 Progressive version of Teddy favored popular votes to overturn judicial rulings people didn’t like, something Wilson never favored.  It was this that caused his friends Henry Cabot Lodge and Elihu Root to break with him, work to deny him the Republican nomination, and campaign for Taft, though they knew it would lead to Wilson getting elected.  They felt TR ideas were so dangerous they would fundamentally undermine the Constitution.

    • #5
  6. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…
    @GumbyMark

    TR wanted to dismantle the republic and substitute direct democracy, which Root characterized as “democratic absolutism.”  He was much more radical in that respect than Wilson.

    • #6
  7. WalterSobchakEsq Thatcher
    WalterSobchakEsq
    @WalterSobchakEsq

    Dear Steven: I yield to no man in my disdain for Woodrow Wilson. But, no one is perfectly or completely evil. Wilson did do one good deed:

    … On the eve of [Rosh Hashanah]—September 5, 1918—the New York Times published the text of a letter from President Woodrow Wilson to Stephen S. Wise, a prominent Reform rabbi who also served as vice-president of the Zionist Organization of America. In the letter, the president effectively announced his approval of the November 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which the British government had expressed its history-changing commitment to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

    … In sending his letter to Rabbi Wise, and authorizing the Times to publish it on a date deliberately timed to coincide with the onset of Rosh Hashanah, the president was making a gesture that would significantly advance the Zionist cause both domestically and internationally.

    … By the summer and early autumn of 1917, as the British cabinet was considering successive drafts of a pro-Zionist declaration, … Despite multiple meetings over several months, the British cabinet remained split, in part because of conflicting cables it had received from Washington concerning President Wilson’s views on the matter. On October 4, 1917 it instructed the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour—who had stated he knew Wilson was extremely favorable to the Zionist movement—to solicit those views directly.

    … At its meeting on October 31, the British cabinet—Wilson’s private approval having been confirmed—proceeded to authorize the issuance and publication of the Balfour Declaration. …

    … both [Secy State] Lansing and [Wilson’s chief adviser, Colonel Edward M.] House remained opposed …. An influential body of American missionaries in the Middle East … also opposed American support for the Declaration …

    [Wilson’s] letter was crucial for several reasons: it publicly expressed Wilson’s support for Zionism; it tracked the words of the Balfour Declaration itself; and, most important, it made the United States the fourth of the principal Allies—after Britain, France, and Italy—to endorse publicly a Jewish national home in Palestine. That made the 1917 Balfour Declaration an openly acknowledged consensus among the Allies as World War I approached its final months.

    “When American Jews Fought over the Balfour Declaration”  by Rick Richman on Sept. 6 2018

    • #7
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