Don’t erase Woodrow Wilson. Expose him.

[garbon]

Well I think that is a little dramatic and certainly far removed from these protests at Princeton regarding Wilson.

[The Brain]

I identify the process of erasing the past with the Nazis, Stalinism, the first Qin Emperor, the papal index and the ISIS knobsters. Just on that basis I'm fairly sure it is a bad idea.

Cool, yuk, cool, yuk, yuk. A narrow win for bad.

[Martinus]

Well I think that is a little dramatic and certainly far removed from these protests at Princeton regarding Wilson.

The sentiment is the same - the only difference is power.

[garbon]

I don't think so. I don't think most, even a meaningful amount, are saying we should obliterate the past.

Also, I know it was a long time ago for you, but college students say and think stupid things. Oh noes!

[dps]

Don't much care for the idea of trying to erase the past, but I'm always happy to see Wilson called out as the racist shithead he was.

[grumbler]

I think that we can all agree (and the Princeton protesters would agree) that trying to "erase" Woodrow Wilson is a bad idea.  People would notice that there apparently was no POTUS from 1912-1920, and would get suspicious.

I think it is entirely reasonable to debate whether the egotistical, racist loser should get buildings, dining halls, and graduate schools named after him.  Wilson was pretty much the epitome of failure; he lied about his nature to get elected, lied about his intentions to get re-elected, and lied about his physical health in order to circumvent the law and the constitution.  Killing the League of Nations in a fit of pique was probably the most Wilsonian act ever. Princeton should dump him.  He's an anchor they don't need.

[celedhring]

I wasn't aware that Wilson was such a twit. You learn something every day I guess.

I take issue about "Birth of a Nation" being projected in the White House as "proof" of his racist inclinations though; for better of worse (probably worse), that film was a huge blockbuster of the era, so it's natural that the president saw it.

[Razgovory]

Grumbler has very high standards.  Get elected President:  LOSER!  Maybe he has a thing against the Federal reserve.  Now Wilson was a racist, even more racist then most people, but nobody really cared since few people weren't racist.  He did appoint McReynolds to the Supreme Court, who was probably biggest asshole to ever serve on the bench and at the same time appointed Brandeis.  So you have to take the bad with the good.

[grumbler]

I wasn't aware that Wilson was such a twit. You learn something every day I guess.

He was essentially thrown out of the Versailles Peace Treaty negotiations for being an ass.  He then sat in on the Treaty of St Germaine negotiations and those in Trianon (with negative effect, since he insisted on supporting the Slavs against the Magyars in almost every dispute).

Few remember that the US would have joined the League of Nations had Wilson not blocked the Senate vote for ratification (because of an amendment that disallowed US participation in a League-declared war without an act of Congress).  The British and French, naturally, added that codicil to their ratification.  Wilson rejected any amendments, even good ones, as an affront to his person.  He was egotistical enough to say of his efforts in the peace negotiations that "at last the world knows America as the savior of the world!" 

Then, of course, there are his attempts to hide the fact that he was incapacitated by his stroke and that his wife, not the Vice President, was the acting president.

And, of course, his egotistical attempt to force the Democrats to nominate him for a third term, despite his inability to serve as a result of his stroke. 

Of course the guy whose thunder is always stolen on the League of nations was its author, Jan Smuts; he was even more racist than Wilson, though, so maybe that's justice at work!

I take issue about "Birth of a Nation" being projected in the White House as "proof" of his racist inclinations though; for better of worse (probably worse), that film was a huge blockbuster of the era, so it's natural that the president saw it.

Agree.  No need to reach so hard when there's plenty of better and less ambiguous evidence.

[dps]

I wasn't aware that Wilson was such a twit. You learn something every day I guess.

I take issue about "Birth of a Nation" being projected in the White House as "proof" of his racist inclinations though; for better of worse (probably worse), that film was a huge blockbuster of the era, so it's natural that the president saw it.

I don't have a problem with him screening it;  it was his praise of the movie that's problematic.  Now, if it was just praise for the technical accomplishments of the movie, I don't have any problem with that, either, but there's the whole issue of the plot of the movie as well.  But I do agree with grumbler that we don't really have to worry about there being plenty of better and less ambiguous evidence as to Wilson's faults.

[Valmy]

I did think it was weird one of the big villains was a radical republican who looked just like Thaddeus Stevens but was not named Thaddeus Stevens. That was strange.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I don't think so. I don't think most, even a meaningful amount, are saying we should obliterate the past.

Also, I know it was a long time ago for you, but college students say and think stupid things. Oh noes!

I was responding to thread topic title rather than your posts, I don't think we are in substantive disagreement.

Lately I have been doing a little bit of reading, mere memory-jogging really, about how awful (some) students were back in the 1960s and 70s. It has helped put some of the current nonsense in perspective.

As for Wilson I have never liked the fellow, in HoI terms he would be the "sanctimonious schoolmaster" (I daresay we have all met at least one of these back in our school days). With a better man I'm sure that Versailles could have been a far better treaty.

[celedhring]

Wilson's purported "Birth of a Nation" quote is disputed, and was likely fabricated to promote the film. I don't know that much about Wilson, but I do about the film. But yeah, a cursory google search reveals a bunch of pretty factual racist moves by him, so I'm not arguing the larger point here.

It's so uncomfortable having such a violently racist film as one of the landmarks in American cinema, incidentally; when it got projected during my film class most black people quietly left the room.

[Martinus]

Wilson is worshipped in Poland. There are only two other US Presidents who have a major square/street named after them.

[Syt]

Wilson is worshipped in Poland. There are only two other US Presidents who have a major square/street named after them.

The others probably FDR and Kennedy?