Woodrow Wilson was a good president
The consensus around Woodrow Wilson in the public seems to be that he was a bad president and an even worse person, but in my opinion he was a good president who has been unfairly maligned by a reactionary and revisionist pop-history group. Let's look at some of the achievements of the Wilson Presidency
- Played a large part in raising government revenue and creating a more equitable economy by re-establishing the income tax and lowering tariff rates with the Revenue Act of 1913
- Created the Federal Reserve System, allowing a system unburdened by immobile reserves and inelastic currencies of the previous free banking system
- Created the Federal Trade Commission, outlawing unfair methods of competition and unfair practices involving commerce
- Passed the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, decreasing anticompetitive practices within the US economy
- Passed the Federal Farm Load Act, increasing credit to rural farmers by creating a federal farm board
- Passed the Adamson Act, mandating an eight-hour work day for railroad workers, which helped avert a threatened railroad strike
- Set up the War Industries Board to increase cooperation between the Army and Navy during World War 1
- Promoted labor union cooperation with the federal government during World War 1
- Created the US Food Administration and US Fuel Administration through the Lever Act
- Nationalized the Nations Railroad System
- His foreign policy, known as Wilsonianism, was the ideological and theoretical basis towards the US becoming a world power, as it influenced both the foreign policies of both Franklin Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman
- Won the Nobel Peace Prize as the leading architect behind the league of nations, which would later go on to influence the United Nations, posthumously laying the foundation for post-war peace.
