It all began with Wilson (Congress, legal, cocaine, drug)

[Archguy]

So I really wanted to like Woodrow Wilson. Public intellectual, president of Princeton University, solid southerner of Scots-Irish stock, early automobile enthusiast. What's not to like? Well, forget Bush Did It, forget Clinton Did It, Barack Did It, whatever. Forget all of it!

Because Woodrow Wilson Did It, did it all, did it first.

• Persuaded Congress to establish the Federal Reserve in 1913.
• That same year, instituted America's first regular income tax--the top tax rate was originally 7% on incomes above $500,000 (over $10 million in today's dollars) but the top rate was jacked up to 77% before WWI was over.
• Took control of the nation's railroads. Enacted the first federal drug prohibition. Allowed women to vote! Good God the man was insane!
• Based his re-election campaign on the slogan "He kept us out of the war" and then, after inauguration, promptly led the USA into the "Great War" in Europe, to "make the world safe for Democracy" and be the "war to end all wars" etc etc.
• His interventionist doctrine (since called "Wilsonianism") called for the United States to enter (create?) conflicts anywhere in the world to "fight for democracy" if you want to believe it.
• Started the first draft since the Civil War.
• Used Liberty Bonds to finance the war with billions in debt.
• Chucked that annoying First Amendment. Hey we're at war!

To counter opposition to the war at home, Wilson pushed the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 through Congress to suppress anti-British, pro-German, or anti-war opinions... Citing the Espionage Act, the U.S. Post Office refused to carry any written materials that could be deemed critical of the U. S. war effort. Some sixty newspapers were deprived of their second-class mailing rights.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...18-commons.jpg

But he certainly didn't stop there...

Between 1914 and 1918, the United States intervened in Latin America, particularly in Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, and Panama. The U.S. maintained troops in Nicaragua throughout the Wilson administration and used them to select the president of Nicaragua and then to force Nicaragua to pass the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty. American troops in Haiti, under the command of the federal government, forced the Haitian legislature to choose the candidate Wilson selected as Haitian president. American troops occupied Haiti between 1915 and 1934. Wilson ordered the military occupation of the Dominican Republic shortly after the resignation of its President Juan Isidro Jimenes Pereyra in 1916. The U.S. military worked in concert with wealthy Dominican landowners to suppress the gavilleros, a campesino guerrilla force fighting the occupation. The occupation lasted until 1924, and was notorious for its brutality against those in the resistance.

Wilson's administration did not plan for the process of demobilization; as a result, the period proved chaotic and violent. Four million soldiers were sent home with little planning, little money, and few benefits. A wartime bubble in prices of farmland burst, leaving many farmers bankrupt or deeply in debt after they purchased new land. Major strikes in steel, coal, and meatpacking followed in 1919.[99] Serious race riots hit Chicago, Omaha and two dozen other cities.

• Acceded to England's Balfour Declaration authorizing the Jewish colonization of Palestine.
  (Gee, I wonder if that could lead to trouble?)
• Negotiated (along with England and France) the humiliating Treaty of Versailles forcing onerous terms upon a defeated Germany, setting the stage for its later economic collapse and, many contend, the rise of fascism and World War II. (Gee, I wonder if that could lead to trouble?)

Woodrow and Edith Wilson after his incapacitating stroke.

Review: The Icarus Syndrome

[michiganmoon]

I personally think Wilson is overrated.

A couple points though:

1) Wilson dragged his feet on Women Suffrage until it was the popular thing to do, so I really wouldn't give him credit for that. People like Alice Paul deserve credit for that movement, not him.

2) Wilson opposed the principles within the Versailles Treaty and the US did not sign it. Had the US and world listened to him, it is "possible" WWII could have been prevented.

[wutitiz]

Good post. You hit most of the high points.

Also, Wilson was an out-and-out racist, in the manner of progressives of the time. He barred blacks from Princeton and segregated the federal work force, including the military. It had been desegregated by Republicans following the civil war.

Also Wilson bequeathed us the FBI and our wonderful federal law enforcement complex. Congress at the time was skeptical of a national police force, but progressive Wilson pushed it thru. In 1924 J Edgar Hoover was appointed FBI director, and the rest is history. Cointelpro, spying on MLK, Richard Jewell, Ruby Ridge, etc.

"It all began with Wilson"---very well said.

[gunlover]

I wish he had been shot on the day he took office.

[Harrier]

You forgot to mention that Wilson was a Democrat.

When his Republican successor, Warren Harding, campaigned, he called for a return to "normalcy".

In 2016 - the GOP needs to call for a return to sanity.

[theunbrainwashed]

OP, Federal Reserve is not evil, that is what you are implying. If you want to reign in the Federal Reserve, then support Elizabeth Warren

[OhioRules]

He was also a racist Democrat. But I repeat myself.

He pushed as hard as he could to join the League of Nations. He was a big One World Government guy and people in his administration openly called for it. Look up his top advisor Colonel House. Piece of work.

And wasn't it during Wilson's time we started the direct election of U.S. Senators? Maybe the worst idea in history. Changed Congress from a body that attempted to do it's job and respect individual rights at the same time to a bank that rearranges money to buy votes and power. The courts and executive branch now does the job of Congress. a complete disaster. The death of the Republic.

I think Wilson was an evil man. By far the worst President we ever had and I suspect his soul in burning in hell as we speak.

[kerrymac]

Wilson was a racist and another progressive waste and FDR was his retread!

[wutitiz]

That's an interesting point I hadn't thought of too. If I'm not mistaken, FDR got his start in politics under Wilson, as Sec'y of the Navy.

We started many pernicious trends in that era. Lots of nannyism. The Harrison Act (1914) started us down the drug war path. Prior to that, opium, cocaine, and marijuana were all perfectly legal. The Mann Act (1910) started the war on prostitution. Prior to that prostitution was largely legal, or at least tolerated in the US. Then there was alcohol prohibition 1919 (which Wilson did oppose, so give him a sliver of credit).

Interestingly both prostitution & drug bans were intertwined with the progressive racism of the time. The libs were afraid that prostitution would lead to inter-racial sex, and that coked up black males would be a threat to the virtue of the white female.

NEGRO COCAINE "FIENDS" ARE A NEW SOUTHERN MENACE - Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower Class Blacks Because They Have Taken to "Sniffing" Since Deprived of Whisky by Prohibition. - Article - NYTimes.com

[OICU812]

Th OP forgot to mention the 17th amendment. Once the senate was an elected body, making it no different then the house, and the senators became corruptible politicians, working towards their own selfish agendas and not their states, everything just went down hill from there.