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Woodrow Wilson
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6. WOODROW WILSON: A BIOGRAPHY~ CHAPTER 10 AND CHAPTER 11 (198 - 236) ~ APRIL 29th - MAY 5th, No Spoilers, Please
Chapter Overviews and SummariesChapter Ten: Beginning
After being sworn in, Wilson plans to work on tariff, tax and bank reform, conservation, and agricultural issues. There was no inaugural ball, but Ellen has a series of receptions the next day. The Wilson family settles and develop a routine. They had a new White House physician, Dr. Cary Grayson. Tumulty manages the office, appointments, and congressional relations. Wilson comes in by 9 am, handle mail and visitors, then lunch, appointments, and a drive or golf. It was a well-organized White House.
He held regular press conferences at first, but he canceled them by 1915 when his wife died and foreign affairs crept into his time. He delegates many things to his cabinet, and it wasn't his strongest point. One of the biggest examples is that Navy and post office segregated their offices and Wilson allowed it. Wilson still struggled with appointments as Democrats fight for slots. The diplomatic corp was not very strong, either.
Wilson would be tested when Mexico suffered from the aftermath of a coup to oust Francisco Madero by Jose Victoriano Huerto. Businesses supported Huerta at first, but Wilson did not approve of a coup. Bryan tried to do less of "dollar diplomacy" and Wilson went along. The U.S. declined money to China for a railroad project, so Japan stepped in. Wilson's administration were at odds with Japan when California restricted land ownership of Japanese immigrants.
Chapter Eleven: Taken at the Flood
Wilson heralded a large legislative agenda, rivaling only FDR and LBJ. The foreign scene was quiet and the progressive platform was popular. Wilson met with party leaders of both houses in order to get his legislation passed. The first piece was lowering the tariff.
The second piece was bank reform, creating the Federal Reserve System. Sen. Robert Owen, Rep. Glass, McAdoo, and Wilson had to iron out a system that would pass both houses. Wilson wanted a board of directors that were not controlled by bankers, and he gets the bankers to agree that the regional banks would have advisory councils that they can be a part of. Bryan helped kill a revolt of westerns legislators who wanted to add farm loans to the bill. By being flexible and patient, Wilson got the Federal Reserve system passed.
1913 Inaugural Address:There has been a change of government. It began two years ago, when the House of Representatives became Democratic by a decisive majority. It has now been completed. The Senate about to assemble will also be Democratic. The offices of President and Vice-President have been put into the hands of Democrats. What does the change mean? That is the question that is uppermost in our minds to-day. That is the question I am going to try to answer, in order, if I may, to interpret the occasion.
It means much more than the mere success of a party. The success of a party means little except when the Nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose. No one can mistake the purpose for which the Nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party. It seeks to use it to interpret a change in its own plans and point of view. Some old things with which we had grown familiar, and which had begun to creep into the very habit of our thought and of our lives, have altered their aspect as we have latterly looked critically upon them, with fresh, awakened eyes; have dropped their disguises and shown themselves alien and sinister. Some new things, as we look frankly upon them, willing to comprehend their real character, have come to assume the aspect of things long believed in and familiar, stuff of our own convictions. We have been refreshed by a new insight into our own life.
We see that in many things that life is very great. It is incomparably great in its material aspects, in its body of wealth, in the diversity and sweep of its energy, in the industries which have been conceived and built up by the genius of individual men and the limitless enterprise of groups of men. It is great, also, very great, in its moral force. Nowhere else in the world have noble men and women exhibited in more striking forms the beauty and the energy of sympathy and helpfulness and counsel in their efforts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set the weak in the way of strength and hope. We have built up, moreover, a great system of government, which has stood through a long age as in many respects a model for those who seek to set liberty upon foundations that will endure against fortuitous change, against storm and accident. Our life contains every great thing, and contains it in rich abundance.
But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold has been corroded. With riches has come inexcusable waste. We have squandered a great part of what we might have used, and have not stopped to conserve the exceeding bounty of nature, without which our genius for enterprise would have been worthless and impotent, scorning to be careful, shamefully prodigal as well as admirably efficient. We have been proud of our industrial achievements, but we have not hitherto stopped thoughtfully enough to count the human cost, the cost of lives snuffed out, of energies overtaxed and broken, the fearful physical and spiritual cost to the men and women and children upon whom the dead weight and burden of it all has fallen pitilessly the years through. The groans and agony of it all had not yet reached our ears, the solemn, moving undertone of our life, coming up out of the mines and factories, and out of every home where the struggle had its intimate and familiar seat. With the great Government went many deep secret things which we too long delayed to look into and scrutinize with candid, fearless eyes. The great Government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people.
At last a vision has been vouchsafed us of our life as a whole. We see the bad with the good, the debased and decadent with the sound and vital. With this vision we approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without weakening or sentimentalizing it. There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great. Our thought has been "Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself," while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have a chance to look out for themselves. We had not forgotten our morals. We remembered well enough that we had set up a policy which was meant to serve the humblest as well as the most powerful, with an eye single to the standards of justice and fair play, and remembered it with pride. But we were very heedless and in a hurry to be great.
We have come now to the sober second thought. The scales of heedlessness have fallen from our eyes. We have made up our minds to square every process of our national life again with the standards we so proudly set up at the beginning and have always carried at our hearts. Our work is a work of restoration.
We have itemized with some degree of particularity the things that ought to be altered and here are some of the chief items: A tariff which cuts us off from our proper part in the commerce of the world, violates the just principles of taxation, and makes the Government a facile instrument in the hand of private interests; a banking and currency system based upon the necessity of the Government to sell its bonds fifty years ago and perfectly adapted to concentrating cash and restricting credits; an industrial system which, take it on all its sides, financial as well as administrative, holds capital in leading strings, restricts the liberties and limits the opportunities of labor, and exploits without renewing or conserving the natural resources of the country; a body of agricultural activities never yet given the efficiency of great business undertakings or served as it should be through the instrumentality of science taken directly to the farm, or afforded the facilities of credit best suited to its practical needs; watercourses undeveloped, waste places unreclaimed, forests untended, fast disappearing without plan or prospect of renewal, unregarded waste heaps at every mine. We have studied as perhaps no other nation has the most effective means of production, but we have not studied cost or economy as we should either as organizers of industry, as statesmen, or as individuals.
Nor have we studied and perfected the means by which government may be put at the service of humanity, in safeguarding the health of the Nation, the health of its men and its women and its children, as well as their rights in the struggle for existence. This is no sentimental duty. The firm basis of government is justice, not pity. These are matters of justice. There can be no equality or opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they can not alter, control, or singly cope with. Society must see to it that it does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constituent parts. The first duty of law is to keep sound the society it serves. Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and laws determining conditions of labor which individuals are powerless to determine for themselves are intimate parts of the very business of justice and legal efficiency.
These are some of the things we ought to do, and not leave the others undone, the old-fashioned, never-to-be-neglected, fundamental safeguarding of property and of individual right. This is the high enterprise of the new day: To lift everything that concerns our life as a Nation to the light that shines from the hearthfire of every man's conscience and vision of the right. It is inconceivable that we should do this as partisans; it is inconceivable we should do it in ignorance of the facts as they are or in blind haste. We shall restore, not destroy. We shall deal with our economic system as it is and as it may be modified, not as it might be if we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon; and step by step we shall make it what it should be, in the spirit of those who question their own wisdom and seek counsel and knowledge, not shallow self-satisfaction or the excitement of excursions whither they can not tell. Justice, and only justice, shall always be our motto.
And yet it will be no cool process of mere science. The Nation has been deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn passion, stirred by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of government too often debauched and made an instrument of evil. The feelings with which we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep across our heartstrings like some air out of God's own presence, where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one. We know our task to be no mere task of politics but a task which shall search us through and through, whether we be able to understand our time and the need of our people, whether we be indeed their spokesmen and interpreters, whether we have the pure heart to comprehend and the rectified will to choose our high course of action.
This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication. Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity. Men's hearts wait upon us; men's lives hang in the balance; men's hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to my side. God helping me, I will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain me!
(Source: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/ind...)
It means much more than the mere success of a party. The success of a party means little except when the Nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose.This reminds me of Jefferson's "we are all Republicans" line...
One thing I noted in Chapter 10 (I haven't gotten to chapter 11 yet) is that Wilson managed to both let department heads run their own departments *and* make solitary decisions. But it wasn't clear to me exactly how he did this. Did he give general directions to the various secretaries and then take his hands off?
Good question, Peter, I agree Cooper is fuzzy on this. I wanted more insight.I get the impression Wilson set the tone for what he wanted to get done at a program or legislative level for each department, but left the administrative aspect to the secretaries. He probably didn't know what was going on in a department unless a secretary talked to him about it. If there was a farm bill, then Wilson would talk to the secretary of agriculture. During the cabinet meeting, a secretary would give an opinion, but I don't see Wilson giving a secretary an order unless there was a dire problem or it impacted a policy or legislation.
You definitely are getting the feeling that Wilson was insensitive to blacks and unwilling to change race relations especially if they endangered his legislative program. You also have to figure he needs Southerners for votes.
Regarding race relations - I think you have to judge people based on the times in which they lived. But, per Cooper, Wilson went backwards by re-segregating some areas.
True, Peter, he was a man of his times, I don't think he could have done any major changes, nor did he do minor ones, either, as we begin to see in these chapters.
What are your initial thoughts on Wilson's foreign policy regarding the recognition (or not) of Huerta's government and the Chinese loan?
Bryan wrote: "What are your initial thoughts on Wilson's foreign policy regarding the recognition (or not) of Huerta's government and the Chinese loan?"Bryan a side thought:
Why is it that foreign relations post (Sec. Of State, ambassadorships) are generally filled as patronage to large donors? Given the enormous potential for misinterpretation, wrong signals and the anger of officials who control vast armies, why the belief that these posts are the play toys of the rich?
On a personal note - the book mentions Mr. Vanderlip. His mansion in Scarborough, NY was divided into 3 houses, with more houses on the large grounds. These were sold off. I know this because my parents lived in one of the 3 houses - itself a 5 bedroom house (that is, 1/3 of the mansion had 5 bedrooms).It was quite a place, and Vanderlip seems like a really obnoxious fellow. The ceiling of the living room was engraved with the seals of corporations and universities he was on the board of; he had a path through the woods to the nearby train station so that he wouldn't have to be near others on the way to his private railroad car. There were 23 bedrooms in the servants' quarters - and one bathroom for them all.
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Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief
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The one bathroom in the servants' quarters says a lot.
I lived there myself for a month here and a month there. We never met any of the original owners.
Jim wrote: "Bryan wrote: "What are your initial thoughts on Wilson's foreign policy regarding the recognition (or not) of Huerta's government and the Chinese loan?"Bryan a side thought:
Why is it that foreig..."
Back then you needed money to be an ambassador, because the State Department did not pay for any expenses. So, you had to pay for all the dinners, balls, etc. that was expected of you. It was also pretty prestigious, so it is a big "thank-you" for your donation. I think tradition never really frowned on giving wealthy men these jobs.
Peter wrote: "On a personal note - the book mentions Mr. Vanderlip. His mansion in Scarborough, NY was divided into 3 houses, with more houses on the large grounds. These were sold off. I know this because my pa..."Wow, very cool, Peter. Yeah, I get the impression Vanderlip was pretty obnoxious. Thanks for sharing.
Do you agree with the author's assessment that Wilson's domestic agenda (and I add success) rivals LBJ and FDR?
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Great point, Bentley. World War One and his stroke really shadowed these early years. They are pretty amazing. One of the big things that LBJ and Wilson seem to share is meeting with the congressmen, talking to them (different methods, of course), but trying to get them to cooperate. Great skills.
I think Cooper makes the point that in the area of anti-trust and banking reform the 'successes' as measured by the intent of the new laws may not have been fully realized until subsequent administrations....probably not that uncommon. The pro-labor clause in the Clayton Act seems like a hollow victory to me.Jim raises a good question about the ambassadorships, though I'm not sure State is a patronage appointment...It raises another question about how effectively someone like Bryan (or any Secretary of State) can interact with the other appointed diplomats. I'm thinking Clinton and Rice on the Benghazi business.
So true, Peter, it took other disasters to revise these measures to its full capacity. The State Department has a number of posts to give out, but it is minor compared to Postal, maybe Treasury.
I think technology made it easier to keep tabs on the ambassadors as compared to Jefferson's time, the ambassador had a lot of room to work with.
Bryan wrote: "Do you agree with the author's assessment that Wilson's domestic agenda (and I add success) rivals LBJ and FDR?"Not yet, but the book isn't over yet. :-)
Wilson relationships on race seems to be that he would was great at talking about equality but when it came time to actually put these words into action he failed. He could have advanced racial justice by decades if he had of had the political will to defy the southern leaders in his own party. A great opportunity was missed by him. His policies toward Asian is just more of his closet racism. I guess it may be true about Wilson is that you can take the racist out of the South but you can never take his racism away from him.Even after stating the above I am not sure if he had of taken this stand that it would not have backfired and lost him all support. If this had happened we would certainly be living in different world today. Oh the what ifs of history.
I like Wilson's manner in dealing with his cabinet. Appointing good men to run the departments and let them do their jobs. Meeting with them and discussing the overall policies of the administration and what he would have liked to see them do would have helped these men better understand their jobs and might have kept them from making errors that showed lack of oversight on Wilson's part. Let the departments heads run the internal workings of the day to day operations but not let them have so much authority was a fault of his.
Agreed, Clayton, he might have been able to do some small things like keep some departments integrated, but he would lose a lot of support if he pushed too far. He did pull back from his campaign pledge.I get the impression from Cooper that he didn't pick first-rate cabinet members. Maybe the options were slim pickings. It definitely is a balance of not to step in and to step in when needed. I think every president goes through this.
I agree with Clayton about the missed opportunity in the advancement of racial relations . . . too bad that he could not overcome his ingrained prejudice to see the benefits and contributions of people despite color and ethnicity . . . how short sited.
It is a shame and it is hard thing to lift above the prejudice.
Tomerobber wrote: "I agree with Clayton about the missed opportunity in the advancement of racial relations."I feel Wilson took the safe path as he championed the popular votes to win the election. To me he appears stiff and devoid of compassion.
I wonder if his father’s sermons were boring in nature lacking true passion.
What bothers me most about Wilson's policies toward African Americans is that they didn't just ignore black people, these policies actually set them backwards. I say "Wilson's" policies because he was responsible for his Cabinet and definitely knew what they were doing.NAACP leader W.E.B.DuBois clearly made Wilson aware of the effects of the these policies in a September, 1913 open letter he wrote to Wilson in 1913:
Sir, you have now been President of the United States for six months and what is the result? It is no exaggeration to say that every enemy of the Negro race is greatly encouraged; that every man who dreams of making the Negro race a group of menials and pariahs is alert and hopeful. Vardaman, Tillman, Hoke Smith, Cole Blease, and Burleson are evidently assuming that their theory of the place and destiny of the Negro race is the theory of your administration, They and others are assuming this because not a single act and not a single word of yours since election has given anyone reason to infer that that you have the slightest interest in the colored people or desire to alleviate their intolerable position, A dozen worthy Negro officials have been removed from office, and you have nominated but on black man for office, and he such a contemptible cur, that his very nomination was an insult to every Negro in the land.
To this negative appearance of indifference has been added positive action on the part of your advisers, with or without your knowledge, which constitutes the gravest attack on the liberties of our people since emancipation, Public segregation of civil servants in government employ, necessarily involving personal insult and humiliation, has for the first time in history been made the policy of the United States government.
In the Treasury and Post Office Departments colored clerks have been herded to themselves as though they were not human beings. We are told that one colored clerk who could not actually be segregated on account of the nature of his work has consequently had a cage built around him to separate him from his white companions of many years. Mr. Wilson, do you know these things? Are you responsible for them? Did you advise them? Do you not know that no other group of American citizens has ever been treated in this way and that no President of the United States ever dared to propose such treatment? Here is a plain, flat, disgraceful spitting in the face of people whose darkened countenances are already dark with the slime of insult. Do you consent to this, President Wilson? Do you believe in it? Have you been able to persuade yourself that national insult is best for a people struggling into self-respect?
Source: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/li...
The following is from a conversation between black leader Monroe Trotter and Woodrow Wilson reported in 1915 by the NAACP magazine THE CRISIS. If this truly reflects Wilson's ideas, it is not in the least surprising that he allowed the segregation of the Civil Service. He was tone deaf when it came to the real aspirations of African Americans. President Woodrow Wilson: The white people of the country, as well as I, wish to see the colored people progress, and admire the progress they have already made, and want to see them continue along independent lines. There is, however, a great prejudice against colored people. . . . It will take one hundred years to eradicate this prejudice, and we must deal with it as practical men. Segregation is not humiliating, but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen. If your organization goes out and tells the colored people of the country that it is a humiliation, they will so regard it, but if you do not tell them so, and regard it rather as a benefit, they will regard it the same. The only harm that will come will be if you cause them to think it is a humiliation.
Source: The Crisis, January, 1915, 119–20. Reprinted in William Loren Katz, Eyewitness: The Negro in American History (New York: Pitman Publishing Corporation, 1967), 389–90.
Wilson ended up so angry at Trotter that he told him that delegation would have to have a new leader before he would ever meet with them again.
This material came from: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5719/
Thanks, Ann. We shouldn't talk too much about message 28 relating to 1915 because Cooper covers that in the next chapter.However, your points are well-taken. You get a sense with the development of NAACP that blacks were wanting more from the establishment, and Wilson wasn't coming through.
Mark wrote: "Tomerobber wrote: "I agree with Clayton about the missed opportunity in the advancement of racial relations."I feel Wilson took the safe path as he championed the popular votes to win the electio..."
Cooper suggests that he is a great speaker. He gets out of practice and rambles on, but when he gets fired up, he is pretty passionate. I wish we had audio, just 4-5 years too early.
But for some reason, Mark, he does come off stiff. Funny.
Address to a Joint Session of Congress on the Banking System June 23, 1913:It is under the compulsion of what seems to me a clear and imperative duty that I have a second time this session sought the privilege of addressing you in person. I know, of course, that the heated season of the year is upon us, that work in these chambers and in the committee rooms is likely to become a burden as the season lengthens, and that every consideration of personal convenience and personal comfort, perhaps, in the cases of some of us, considerations of personal health even, dictate an early conclusion of the deliberations of the session; but there are occasions of public duty when these things which touch us privately seem very small, when the work to be done is so pressing and so fraught with big consequence that we know that we are not at liberty to weigh against it any point of personal sacrifice. We are now in the presence of such an occasion. It is absolutely imperative that we should give the business men of this country a banking and currency system by means of which they can make use of the freedom of enterprise and of individual initiative which we are about to bestow upon them.
We are about to set them free; we must not leave them without the tools of action when they are free. We are about to set them free by removing the trammels of the protective tariff. Ever since the Civil War they have waited for this emancipation and for the free opportunities it will bring with it. It has been reserved for us to give it to them. Some fell in love, indeed, with the slothful security of their dependence upon the Government; some took advantage of the shelter of the nursery to set up a mimic mastery of their own within its walls. Now both the tonic and the discipline of liberty and maturity are to ensue. There will be some readjustments of purpose and point of view. There will follow a period of expansion and new enterprise, freshly conceived. It is for us to determine now whether it shall be rapid and facile and of easy accomplishment. This it cannot be unless the resourceful business men who are to deal with the new circumstances are to have at hand and ready for use the instrumentalities and conveniences of free enterprise which independent men need when acting on their own initiative.
It is not enough to strike the shackles from business. The duty of statesmanship is not negative merely. It is constructive also. We must show that we understand what business needs and that we know how to supply it. No man, however casual and superficial his observation of the conditions now prevailing in the country, can fail to see that one of the chief things business needs now, and will need increasingly as it gains in scope and vigor in the years immediately ahead of us, is the proper means by which readily to vitalize its credit, corporate and individual, and its originative brains. What will it profit us to be free if we are not to have the best and most accessible instrumentalities of commerce and enterprise? What will it profit us to be quit of one kind of monopoly if we are to remain in the grip of another and more effective kind? How are we to gain and keep the confidence of the business community unless we show that we know how both to aid and to protect it? What shall we say if we make fresh enterprise necessary and also make it very difficult by leaving all else except the tariff just as we found it? The tyrannies of business, big and little, lie within the field of credit. We know that. Shall we not act upon the knowledge? Do we not know how to act upon it? If a man cannot make his assets available at pleasure, his assets of capacity and character and resource, what satisfaction is it to him to see opportunity beckoning to him on every hand, when others have the keys of credit in their pockets and treat them as all but their own private possession? It is perfectly clear that it is our duty to supply the new banking and currency system the country needs, and it will need it immediately more than it has ever needed it before.
The only question is, When shall we supply it—now, or later, after the demands shall have become reproaches that we were so dull and so slow? Shall we hasten to change the tariff laws and then be laggards about making it possible and easy for the country to take advantage of the change? There can be only one answer to that question. We must act now, at whatever sacrifice to ourselves. It is a duty which the circumstances forbid us to postpone. I should be recreant to my deepest convictions of public obligation did I not press it upon you with solemn and urgent insistence.
The principles upon which we should act are also clear. The country has sought and seen its path in this matter within the last few years—sees it more clearly now than it ever saw it before—much more clearly than when the last legislative proposals on the subject were made. We must have a currency, not rigid as now, but readily, elastically responsive to sound credit, the expanding and contracting credits of everyday transactions, the normal ebb and flow of personal and corporate dealings. Our banking laws must mobilize reserves; must not permit the concentration anywhere in a few hands of the monetary resources of the country or their use for speculative purposes in such volume as to hinder or impede or stand in the way of other more legitimate, more fruitful uses. And the control of the system of banking and of issue which our new laws are to set up must be public, not private, must be vested in the Government itself, so that the banks may be the instruments, not the masters, of business and of individual enterprise and initiative.
The committees of the Congress to which legislation of this character is referred have devoted careful and dispassionate study to the means of accomplishing these objects. They have honored me by consulting me. They are ready to suggest action. I have come to you, as the head of the Government and the responsible leader of the party in power, to urge action now, while there is time to serve the country deliberately and as we should, in a clear air of common counsel. I appeal to you with a deep conviction of duty. I believe that you share this conviction. I therefore appeal to you with confidence. I am at your service without reserve to play my part in any way you may call upon me to play it in this great enterprise of exigent reform which it will dignify and distinguish us to perform and discredit us to neglect.
(Source: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi...)
You really appreciate how difficult the Federal Reserve was put together will all the interested parties. Do you decentralize, centralize, private vs. public...
Bryan wrote: "Mark wrote: "Tomerobber wrote: "I agree with Clayton about the missed opportunity in the advancement of racial relations."I feel Wilson took the safe path as he championed the popular votes to wi..."
Actually Bryan . . . that book by Charles River editions that I mentioned in the bibliography did have an audio clip of Wilson giving one of his speeches . . . that was why I downloaded it . . . I was curious to hear what he sounded like. There are three different sound bites and he sounds pretty good when you are listening . . . not a lot of emotion but easy to listen to.
My mistake, thanks Tomerobber; I'm going to check it out right now :-)
I found the discussion of the establishment of the Federal Reserve System very confusing. Can anyone tell me, what specific problems was it designed to remedy? How did the bill passed change the status quo?I understand that the Federal Reserve System now is very different, but I am having a hard time getting a handle on what changed in 1913.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who was confused!
Cooper make much of the fact that Wilson held Congress in session for 18 months. I am confused. It seems now that Congress is out of session about as often as it is in session. What determines its schedule?
Ann, check out the glossary and see if that helps. I agree, Cooper sped through the stuff fast.I will try to add more stuff in the morning.
Thanks, Bryan. I did find some helpful information in the glossary.
Good, let me find some more stuff and answer your question about the 63rd Congress.
Ann wrote: "Cooper make much of the fact that Wilson held Congress in session for 18 months. I am confused. It seems now that Congress is out of session about as often as it is in session. What determines i..."
Ann,
Congress sets the schedule and it normally starts in April, but Wilson called a special session starting in March. It did not take the normal breaks, but worked far longer.
Here is a comparison:
62nd Congress:
1st: April 4, 1911 – August 22, 1911
2nd: December 4, 1911 – August 26, 1912
3rd: December 2, 1912 – March 3, 1913
63rd Congress:
Special: March 4, 1913 – March 17, 1913
1st: April 7, 1913 – December 1, 1913
2nd: December 1, 1913 – October 24, 1914
3rd: December 7, 1914 – March 3, 1915
It is pretty amazing.
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/63rd_Uni...
Ann wrote: "I found the discussion of the establishment of the Federal Reserve System very confusing. Can anyone tell me, what specific problems was it designed to remedy?"Pre-Federal Reserve:
Before the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, there were over 30,000 different currencies floating around in the United States. Currency could be issued by almost anyone -- even drug stores issued their own notes. There were many problems that stemmed from this, including the fact that some currencies were worth more than others. Some currencies were backed by silver or gold, and others by government bonds. There were even times when banks didn't have enough money to honor withdrawals by customers. Imagine going to the bank to withdraw money from your savings account and being told you couldn't because they didn't have your money! Before the Fed was created, banks were collapsing and the economy swung wildly from one extreme to the next. The faith Americans had in the banking system was not very strong. This is why the Fed was created.
The Fed's original job was to organize, standardize and stabilize the monetary system in the United States. It had to set up a method that could create "liquidity" in the money supply -- in other words, make sure banks could honor withdrawals for customers. It also needed to come up with a way to create an "elastic currency," meaning it had to control inflation by making sure prices didn't climb too quickly, and it needed a way of increasing or decreasing the country's supply of currency in order to prevent inflation and recession
(Source: http://money.howstuffworks.com/fed1.htm)
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During the Panic of 1907, there was a run on deposits (especially in New York City) and TR brought in J.P. Morgan to infuse the banks with cash and talk with NYC bankers to settle things down. So, in essence, Morgan was acting as the Federal Reserve.
--Bryan
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of...)
I hope this helps understand the backdrop, something Cooper really didn't do so much.
First Annual Message, Part One:Gentlemen of the Congress:
In pursuance of my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress information of the state of the Union," I take the liberty of addressing you on several matters which ought, as it seems to me, particularly to engage the attention of your honorable bodies, as of all who study the welfare and progress of the Nation.
I shall ask your indulgence if I venture to depart in some degree from the usual custom of setting before you in formal review the many matters which have engaged the attention and called for the action of the several departments of the Government or which look to them for early treatment in the future, because the list is long, very long, and would suffer in the abbreviation to which I should have to subject it. I shall submit to you the reports of the heads of the several departments, in which these subjects are set forth in careful detail, and beg that they may receive the thoughtful attention of your committees and of all Members of the Congress who may have the leisure to study them. Their obvious importance, as constituting the very substance of the business of the Government, makes comment and emphasis on my part unnecessary.
The country, I am thankful to say, is at peace with all the world, and many happy manifestations multiply about us of a growing cordiality and sense of community of interest among the nations, foreshadowing an age of settled peace and good will. More and more readily each decade do the nations manifest their willingness to bind themselves by solemn treaty to the processes of peace, the processes of frankness and fair concession. So far the United States has stood at the front of such negotiations. She will, I earnestly hope and confidently believe, give fresh proof of her sincere adherence to the cause of international friendship by ratifying the several treaties of arbitration awaiting renewal by the Senate. In addition to these, it has been the privilege of the Department of State to gain the assent, in principle, of no less than 31 nations, representing four-fifths of the population of the world, to the negotiation of treaties by which it shall be agreed that whenever differences of interest or of policy arise which can not be resolved by the ordinary processes of diplomacy they shall be publicly analyzed, discussed, and reported upon by a tribunal chosen by the parties before either nation determines its course of action.
There is only one possible standard by which to determine controversies between the United States and other nations, and that is com- pounded of these two elements: Our own honor and our obligations to the peace of the world. A test so compounded ought easily to be made to govern both the establishment of new treaty obligations and the interpretation of those already assumed.
There is but one cloud upon our horizon. That has shown itself to the south of us, and hangs over Mexico. There can be no certain prospect of peace in America until Gen. Huerta has surrendered his usurped authority in Mexico; until it is understood on all hands, indeed, that such pretended governments will not be countenanced or dealt with by-the Government of the United States. We are the friends of constitutional government in America; we are more than its friends, we are its champions; because in no other way can our neighbors, to whom we would wish in every way to make proof of our friendship, work out their own development in peace and liberty. Mexico has no Government. The attempt to maintain one at the City of Mexico has broken down, and a mere military despotism has been set up which has hardly more than the semblance of national authority. It originated in the usurpation of Victoriano Huerta, who, after a brief attempt to play the part of constitutional President, has at last cast aside even the pretense of legal right and declared himself dictator. As a consequence, a condition of affairs now exists in Mexico which has made it doubtful whether even the most elementary and fundamental rights either of her own people or of the citizens of other countries resident within her territory can long be successfully safeguarded, and which threatens, if long continued, to imperil the interests of peace, order, and tolerable life in the lands immediately to the south of us. Even if the usurper had succeeded in his purposes, in despite of the constitution of the Republic and the rights of its people, he would have set up nothing but a precarious and hateful power, which could have lasted but a little while, and whose eventual downfall would have left the country in a more deplorable condition than ever. But he has not succeeded. He has forfeited the respect and the moral support even of those who were at one time willing to see him succeed. Little by little he has been completely isolated. By a little every day his power and prestige are crumbling and the collapse is not far away. We shall not, 1 believe, be obliged to alter our policy of watchful waiting. And then, when the end comes, we shall hope to see constitutional order restored in distressed Mexico by the concert and energy of such of her leaders as prefer the liberty of their people to their own ambitions.
I turn to matters of domestic concern. You already have under consideration a bill for the reform of our system of banking and currency, for which the country waits with impatience, as for something fundamental to its whole business life and necessary to set credit free from arbitrary and artificial restraints. I need not say how earnestly I hope for its early enactment into law. I take leave to beg that the whole energy and attention of the Senate be concentrated upon it till the matter is successfully disposed of. And yet I feel that the request is not needed-that the Members of that great House need no urging in this service to the country.
I present to you, in addition, the urgent necessity that special provision be made also for facilitating the credits needed by the farmers of the country. The pending currency bill does the farmers a great service. It puts them upon an equal footinig with other business men and masters of enterprise, as it should; and upon its passage they will find themselves quit of many of the difficulties which now hamper them in the field of credit. The farmers, of course, ask and should be given no special privilege, such as extending to them the credit of the Government itself. What they need and should obtain is legislation which will make their own abundant and substantial credit resources available as a foundation for joint, concerted local action in their own behalf in getting the capital they must use. It is to this we should now address ourselves.
It has, singularly enough, come to pass that we have allowed the industry of our farms to lag behind the other activities of the country in its development. I need not stop to tell you how fundamental to the life of the Nation is the production of its food. Our thoughts may ordinarily be concentrated upon the cities and the hives of industry, upon the cries of the crowded market place and the clangor of the factory, but it is from the quiet interspaces of the open valleys and the free hillsides that we draw the sources of life and of prosperity, from the farm and the ranch, from the forest and the mine. Without these every street would be silent, every office deserted, every factory fallen into disrepair. And yet the farmer does not stand upon the same footing with the forester and the miner in the market of credit. He is the servant of the seasons. Nature determines how long he must wait for his crops, and will not be hurried in her processes. He may give his note, but the season of its maturity depends upon the season when his crop matures, lies at the gates of the market where his products are sold. And the security he gives is of a character not known in the broker's office or as familiarly as it might be on the counter of the banker.
The Agricultural Department of the Government is seeking to assist as never before to make farming an efficient business, of wide co-operative effort, in quick touch with the markets for foodstuffs. The farmers and the Government will henceforth work together as real partners in this field, where we now begin to see our way very clearly and where many intelligent plans are already being put into execution. The Treasury of the United States has, by a timely and well-considered distribution of its deposits, facilitated the moving of the crops in the present season and prevented the scarcity of available funds too often experienced at such times. But we must not allow ourselves to depend upon extraordinary expedients. We must add the means by which the, farmer may make his credit constantly and easily available and command when he will the capital by which to support and expand his business. We lag behind many other great countries of the modern world in attempting to do this. Systems of rural credit have been studied and developed on the other side of the water while we left our farmers to shift for themselves in the ordinary money market. You have but to look about you in any rural district to see the result, the handicap and embarrassment which nave been put upon those who produce our food.
Conscious of this backwardness and neglect on our part, the Congress recently authorized the creation of a special commission to study the various systems of rural credit which have been put into operation in Europe, and this commission is already prepared to report. Its report ought to make it easier for us to determine what methods will be best suited to our own farmers. I hope and believe that the committees of the Senate and House will address themselves to this matter with the most fruitful results, and I believe that the studies and recently formed plans of the Department of Agriculture may be made to serve them very greatly in their work of framing appropriate and adequate legislation. It would be indiscreet and presumptuous in anyone to dogmatize upon so great and many-sided a question, but I feel confident that common counsel will produce the results we must all desire.
Turn from the farm to the world of business which centers in the city and in the factory, and I think that all thoughtful observers will agree that the immediate service we owe the business communities of the country is to prevent private monopoly more effectually than it has yet been prevented. I think it will be easily agreed that we should let the Sherman anti-trust law stand, unaltered, as it is, with its debatable ground about it, but that we should as much as possible reduce the area of that debatable ground by further and more explicit legislation; and should also supplement that great act by legislation which will not only clarify it but also facilitate its administration and make it fairer to all concerned. No doubt we shall all wish, and the country will expect, this to be the central subject of our deliberations during the present session; but it is a subject so manysided and so deserving of careful and discriminating discussion that 1 shall take the liberty of addressing you upon it in a special message at a later date than this. It is of capital importance that the business men of this country should be relieved of all uncertainties of law with regard to their enterprises and investments and a clear path indicated which they can travel without anxiety. It is as important that they should be relieved of embarrassment and set free to prosper as that private monopoly should be destroyed. The ways of action should be thrown wide open.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/spe...)
First Annual Message, Part Two:I turn to a subject which I hope can be handled promptly and without serious controversy of any kind. I mean the method of selecting nominees for the Presidency of the United States. I feel confident that I do not misinterpret the wishes or the expectations of the country when I urge the prompt enactment of legislation which will provide for primary elections throughout the country at which the voters of the several parties may choose their nominees for the Presidency without the intervention of nominating conventions. I venture the suggestion that this legislation should provide for the retention of party conventions, but only for the purpose of declaring and accepting the verdict of the primaries and formulating the platforms of the parties; and I suggest that these conventions should consist not of delegates chosen for this single purpose, but of the nominees for Congress, the nominees for vacant seats in the Senate of the United States, the Senators whose terms have not yet closed, the national committees, and the candidates for the Presidency themselves, in order that platforms may be framed by those responsible to the people for carrying them into effect.
These are all matters of vital domestic concern, and besides them, outside the charmed circle of our own national life in which our affections command us, as well as our consciences, there stand out our obligations toward our territories over sea. Here we are trustees. Porto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines, are ours, indeed, but not ours to do what we please with. Such territories, once regarded as mere possessions, are no longer to be selfishly exploited; they are part of the domain of public conscience and of serviceable and enlightened statesmanship. We must administer them for the people who live in them and with the same sense of responsibility to them as toward our own people in our domestic affairs. No doubt we shall successfully enough bind Porto Rico and the Hawaiian Islands to ourselves by ties of justice and interest and affection, but the performance of our duty toward the Philippines is a more difficult and debatable matter. We can satisfy the obligations of generous justice toward the people of Porto Rico by giving them the ample and familiar rights and privileges accorded our own citizens in our own territories and our obligations toward the people of Hawaii by perfecting the provisions for self-government already granted them, but in the Philippines we must go further. We must hold steadily in view their ultimate independence, and we must move toward the time of that independence as steadily as the way can be cleared and the foundations thoughtfully and permanently laid.
Acting under the authority conferred upon the President by Congress, I have already accorded the people of the islands a majority in both houses of their legislative body by appointing five instead of four native citizens to the membership of the commission. I believe that in this way we shall make proof of their capacity in counsel and their sense of responsibility in the exercise of political power, and that the success of this step will be sure to clear our view for the steps which are to follow. Step by step we should extend and perfect the system of self-government in the islands, making test of them and modifying them as experience discloses their successes and their failures; that we should more and more put under the control of the native citizens of the archipelago the essential instruments of their life, their local instrumentalities of government, their schools, all the common interests of their communities, and so by counsel and experience set tip a government which all the world will see to be suitable to a people whose affairs are under their own control. At last, I hope and believe, we are beginning to gain the confidence of the Filipino peoples. By their counsel and experience, rather than by our own, we shall learn how best to serve them and how soon it will be possible and wise to withdraw our supervision. Let us once find the path and set out with firm and confident tread upon it and we shall not wander from it or linger upon it.
A duty faces us with regard to Alaska which seems to me very pressing and very imperative; perhaps I should say a double duty, for it concerns both the political and the material development of the Territory. The people of Alaska should be given the full Territorial form of government, and Alaska, as a storehouse, should be unlocked. One key to it is a system of railways. These the Government should itself build and administer, and the ports and terminals it should itself control in the interest of all who wish to use them for the service and development of the country and its people.
But the construction of railways is only the first step; is only thrusting in the key to the storehouse and throwing back the lock and opening the door. How the tempting resources of the country are to be exploited is another matter, to which I shall take the liberty of from time to time calling your attention, for it is a policy which must be worked out by well-considered stages, not upon theory, but upon lines of practical expediency. It is part of our general problem of conservation. We have a freer hand in working out the problem in Alaska than in the States of the Union; and yet the principle and object are the same, wherever we touch it. We must use the resources of the country, not lock them up. There need be no conflict or jealousy as between State and Federal authorities, for there can be no essential difference of purpose between them. The resources in question must be used, but not destroyed or wasted; used, but not monopolized upon any narrow idea of individual rights as against the abiding interests of communities. That a policy can be worked out by conference and concession which will release these resources and yet not jeopard or dissipate them, I for one have no doubt; and it can be done on lines of regulation which need be no less acceptable to the people and governments of the States concerned than to the people and Government of the Nation at large, whose heritage these resources are. We must bend our counsels to this end. A common purpose ought to make agreement easy.
Three or four matters of special importance and significance I beg, that you will permit me to mention in closing.
Our Bureau of Mines ought to be equipped and empowered to render even more effectual service than it renders now in improving the conditions of mine labor and making the mines more economically productive as well as more safe. This is an all-important part of the work of conservation; and the conservation of human life and energy lies even nearer to our interests than the preservation from waste of our material resources.
We owe it, in mere justice to the railway employees of the country, to provide for them a fair and effective employers' liability act; and a law that we can stand by in this matter will be no less to the advantage of those who administer the railroads of the country than to the advantage of those whom they employ. The experience of a large number of the States abundantly proves that.
We ought to devote ourselves to meeting pressing demands of plain justice like this as earnestly as to the accomplishment of political and economic reforms. Social justice comes first. Law is the machinery for its realization and is vital only as it expresses and embodies it.
An international congress for the discussion of all questions that affect safety at sea is now sitting in London at the suggestion of our own Government. So soon as the conclusions of that congress can be learned and considered we ought to address ourselves, among other things, to the prompt alleviation of the very unsafe, unjust, and burdensome conditions which now surround the employment of sailors and render it extremely difficult to obtain the services of spirited and competent men such as every ship needs if it is to be safely handled and brought to port.
May I not express the very real pleas-are I have experienced in co-operating with this Congress and sharing with it the labors of common service to which it has devoted itself so unreservedly during the past seven months of uncomplaining concentration upon the business of legislation? Surely it is a proper and pertinent part of my report on "the state of the Union" to express my admiration for the diligence, the good temper, and the full comprehension of public duty which has already been manifested by both the Houses; and I hope that it may not be deemed an impertinent intrusion of myself into the picture if I say with how much and how constant satisfaction I have availed myself of the privilege of putting my time and energy at their disposal alike in counsel and in action.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/spe...)
Peter wrote: "I'm glad I wasn't the only one who was confused!" Amen. I really didn't get it...
Yeah, I agree with all of you on this. I'm not sure why Cooper flies through all this where we need to have some background. Maybe it isn't a "life and times" but it still gets confusing.
Must really compliment Cooper on this last chapter. A lot of really important things were covered. Everything from tariffs, banking, anti-monoply and federal reserve. It would have been very easy to bog down into a lengthy discussion here. There are many good books written about each of these subjects. He did an admirable job of covering each item.
Thanks, Clayton. One thing you have to say is that Cooper keeps his focus on Wilson throughout. This is a good thing.
Bryan, I really appreciate the additional information on the Federal Reserve. I had no idea that there were so many different currencies! No wonder it was critical that they move on the banking situation. This information really highlights Wilson's achievement in getting the bill passed.
I also appreciate your note on the length of Congressional terms. Congress must have been MUCH more cooperative in Wilson's days, although no doubt it was still difficult to get bills passed.
For the week of April 29, 2013 - May 5, 2013, we are reading Chapters Ten and Eleven of Woodrow Wilson: A Biography.
This week's reading assignment is:
WEEK SIX: April 29, 2013 - May 5, 2013 (p 198 - 236)
Chapter 10. Beginning and 11. Taken at the Flood
We will open up a thread for each week's reading. Please make sure to post in the particular thread dedicated to those specific chapters and page numbers to avoid spoilers. We will also open up supplemental threads as we did for other spotlighted books.
We look forward to your participation. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders and other noted on line booksellers do have copies of the book and shipment can be expedited. The book can also be obtained easily at your local library, or on your Kindle.
There is no rush and we are thrilled to have you join us. It is never too late to get started and/or to post.
Bryan Craig will be moderating this discussion.
Welcome,
~Bryan
TO ALWAYS SEE ALL WEEKS' THREADS SELECT VIEW ALL
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Notes:
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