Remembering former President Woodrow Wilson, 100 years after his death
Mike Staley
Woodrow Wilson’s legacy continues to shine in all aspects of daily life in the United States, but many are left unattributed to Wilson.
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STAUNTON, Va. (WHSV) - Woodrow Wilson’s legacy continues to shine in all aspects of daily life in the United States, but many are left unattributed to Wilson.

Wilson’s beginnings:

Wilson was born in Staunton in 1856. There he spent the first 18 months of his life in the Queen City before moving to Augusta, Georgia before war broke out in the United States. He was the son of a pastor, Joseph Ruggles Wilson. Growing up, Wilson lived in a home with enslaved labor and saw the carnage that broke out with the Civil War.

The church he originally grew up attending became a hospital for Confederate soldiers. As Wilson aged, he experienced what it was like to see bloodshed and be on the losing end of the war. Once the Civil War cleared, he continued to pursue his education and ultimately got his Ph.D. However, this education would not mean he was without controversy his whole life.

President before he became number 28:

From 1903-1910, before Wilson’s time in politics, he served as the president of his alma mater, Princeton University. Unlike any other president, Wilson was the first and only president to hold a Ph.D. degree and have a career as substantial in academia as he did. Before he became president of the University, Wilson taught at the school and furthered his public speaking skills.

Robin von Seldeneck, President/CEO of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, said Wilson was one of the best orators to serve as U.S. President. From his time public speaking and educating students, she said Wilson was fully capable of debate and empowering others. However, this education did not change any of his beliefs from his Confederate roots.

“There is also that piece of Wilson that is hard for us to understand how someone who can be enlightened in so many ways can have such backward views when we look at race,” Seldeneck said.

Wilson was a segregationist. He believed in the doctrine of “Separate but Equal” made by the Supreme Court in 1896. When Wilson took the Oval Office, he believed in segregating certain government services like the post office. von Seldeneck said he believed African-American people had to be “integrated” into society, rather than treated as equals.

“He was also a child who was born into a home with enslaved labor,” von Seldeneck said. “We often forget that, and that’s one of the reasons we see his racist views because he got it from the very beginning.”

One of Wilson’s quotes he is most revered for is, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” However, von Seldeneck said he had a different opinion on who truly deserved to be protected.

“When he says the world must be made safe for democracy, democracy for who? That is one of those contradictions we continue to come to terms with, and I don’t know if you can ever come to terms with that, it’s acknowledging this is what he did,” von Seldeneck said.

“The war to end all wars:”

During Wilson’s time as president, he is well-known for his leadership during World War I. A revolutionary concept, nations across the globe, whether they were in North America, East Asia or Western Europe, every corner of the globe had a hand in this conflict after the assassination of the heir to the Austria-Hungarian Throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

When the Great War started, Wilson opted for a neutral and conflict-free approach to the war. After seeing the bloodshed and carnage of the Civil War, he knew the fate would only be the same for the United States if they entered the war in Europe.

Though the U.S. was allies of many European countries, the war did not involve American citizens, until the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. This along with the famous Zimmermann Telegram, a secret government correspondence sent from Germany to Mexico that would allow Mexico to launch a counterattack to reclaim many southern states including Texas and Arizona, caused Wilson to officially join the war. However, this did not come without hesitation.

“I think as people go into what we have as our trench exhibit, one of the things we have to set the stage is we have a quote from Woodrow Wilson who is talking about having been a son of the South and he saw the destruction,” von Seldeneck said. “It wasn’t he who was going to have to fight, it was going to be some poor widow’s son who was going to fight in that war.”

The official quote from Woodrow Wilson reads:

“I come from the South and I know what war is, for I have seen its wreckage and ruin. It is easy for me as president to declare war. I do not have to fight... It is some poor farmer’s boy, or the son of some poor widow who will have to do the fighting and dying.”

After the war, Wilson advocated for the creation of the League of Nations, which would eventually become the modern-day United Nations. From then on, most presidents of the United States would abstain from conflict and resolve issues through diplomacy and negotiations. However, if the United States hand was forced to enter, they would do so with no withholdings. This was evident through the U.S. entering World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the eventual drops of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

1924 vs. 2024:

In 1912, Wilson had to deal with many issues arising from Reconstruction and the Industrial Revolution. After the Civil War, many states in the Confederacy that rejoined the Union had to reconstruct and fix themselves before they could be fully recognized by the North. During this time, America was going through a rampant technological revolution. Telegrams and cars were invented and “Black Gold” became the lifeline for the economy.

Huge companies formed headed by White men extorting labor laws and even using children to work in the mines or the factories.

John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were the names floating around the headlines, fueling the Industrial Revolution at the expense of the average worker. von Seldeneck said these issues are not limited to the people living in the 1910s. In modern-day times, people can draw parallels to Wilson’s presidency and the issues surrounding his decision-making.

“Some of the same issues that we saw in 1912 when he first ran for president we’re seeing today,” von Seldeneck said. “You can substitute names we hear in the news today, substitute them for Carnegie or Rockefeller and the amount of power that they had in the companies that they created.”

Whether it is Carnegie and Rockefeller or Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, von Seldeneck said both eras see White men in the top 1% who are perpetually getting richer at the expense of minimum wage employees.

Wilson stood up for the employees working for these corporations and introduced laws to break up monopolies that were ruling America.

“When we look at Wilson’s legacy, and what he’s left us with today, there are so many areas we don’t realize that came from Wilson’s time. The many regulations that involve businesses and corporations, anti-monopolies,” von Seldeneck said. “The eight-hour work day, anti-trust laws, child labor laws all of those come from Woodrow Wilson and his era.”

Wilson’s time as president gave America a unified banking system. The Federal Reserve gave banks a central system that could be held accountable by people. von Seldeneck said the Federal Reserve was one of, if not the most crucial of developments to come from his era as president.

“A lot of people don’t understand the Federal Reserve but it is really the first time we had a central banking system that really regulates our banking,” von Seldeneck said. “For all of its flaws, it still is what over 100 years later we are still using for our country.”

As history progresses and people’s legacy is etched in the stories told by future generations, von Seldeneck said it is important to look back at the shortcomings and victories the previous generations had and learn from them.

“What can we take from that and we can apply to our lives today It’s not enough just to know ‘oh something similar happened 100 years ago.’ What I want people to do is reflect, something similar happened 100 years ago ‘what can I do to keep that from happening again?’”