The 100 most influential Americans

[Winston]

And he's dead!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Wilson made interventionism safe for folks who werent hot headed expansionist types - and in particular left a foreign policy legacy to new dealers, post WW2 liberals, etc. As for his mushy headedness, thats pretty exageratted - at least thats my take away from reading "Paris 1919".

Of course he ALSO had a domestic legacy that included the FTC, and the Federal Reserve Bank.

I think it's interesting that that's what you took away from "Paris 1919"; I took away just the opposite impression. Wilson showed up in Europe, glorying in his heroes welcome but without a clue as to how to craft the treaty, and especially clueless regarding how thorny the problem of "self-determination" was going to be. A rank egomaniac, he froze out his subordinates (who had a better grasp of diplomacy and the state of Europe than he did) while displaying an impatience with nitty-gritty detail; crippled by his ignorance and impatience, and armed only with high-flying rhetoric, he found self-interested, realpoliticking Clemenseau and Lloyd-George besting him at every turn. He failed to achieve nearly every goal he had in Paris, and the one thing he did achieve -- the establishment of the League of Nations -- was repudiated at home, guaranteeing its failure.

Federal reserve or no, there's no way he belongs on that list.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I with Rufus, Wilson was a dud. He strode into Europe as conquering hero, but made a major faux pas when he refused to let even a single Republican join his "team" in Europe (just as a symbolic gesture) and then in his arrogance, he wouldn't allow the Republicans in Congress to pass meaningless amendments to the armistace so they could claim some of the credit for it. He basically said, this is what I did, approve or reject it and that's that... and they said fine, we'll reject it. Kind of a GW Bush like with us or against us type of policy with no middle ground or compromise.

That, and the fact he was a horrible racist, reversing a lot of gains made by blacks under the TR and Taft administrations. He talked about self-determination but when Ho Chi Minh wanted to speak to him about it, Wilson had him kicked out.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly



I think it's interesting that that's what you took away from "Paris 1919"; I took away just the opposite impression. Wilson showed up in Europe, glorying in his heroes welcome but without a clue as to how to craft the treaty, and especially clueless regarding how thorny the problem of "self-determination" was going to be. A rank egomaniac, he froze out his subordinates (who had a better grasp of diplomacy and the state of Europe than he did) while displaying an impatience with nitty-gritty detail; crippled by his ignorance and impatience, and armed only with high-flying rhetoric, he found self-interested, realpoliticking Clemenseau and Lloyd-George besting him at every turn. He failed to achieve nearly every goal he had in Paris, and the one thing he did achieve -- the establishment of the League of Nations -- was repudiated at home, guaranteeing its failure.

Federal reserve or no, there's no way he belongs on that list.

Let me clarify what i mean by contradicting mushy headedness - I did not mean to imply that he didnt make mistakes in dealing with his own negotiations, or that he didnt know how difficult the negotiations would be going in (but that latter failing he shared with Clem and George as well) What I meant was that while the conv wisdom is that Wilson on every issue stood naively for self determination, and ignored strategic and historical issues, that is most abundantly false, as demonstrated in that book. He compromised and balanced and traded off. Yes he made mistakes, but so did Clem, and esp L George. The whole thing was an overwhelming task, resolving way too many things in too short a time. WRT many of the key issues one gets the impression that there really was no way of reconciling the conflicting interests at the time, that failure was in some sense inevitable (im thinking particulary of the security issues between France and Germany)


He was of course not armed only with rhetoric, but with American power. But that was a wasting asset given rapid demobilization, and US reluctance to spend large sums in Europe. ANY US president would have faced similar constraints. The problem was that France, Italy, etc had so much at stake, and the US didnt percieve itself as having that much at stake.

Im not saying McMillans book paints Wilson as great hero, but that it presents a much more complex nuanced picture than the standard anti-Wilson conv wisdom.

As for Wilson race backwardness, that was almost inevitable in a Southern pol at that time. And his actions were reversed shortly, while the Fed and the FTC have stood the test of time.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I with Rufus, Wilson was a dud. He strode into Europe as conquering hero, but made a major faux pas when he refused to let even a single Republican join his "team" in Europe (just as a symbolic gesture) and then in his arrogance, he wouldn't allow the Republicans in Congress to pass meaningless amendments to the armistace so they could claim some of the credit for it. He basically said, this is what I did, approve or reject it and that's that... and they said fine, we'll reject it. Kind of a GW Bush like with us or against us type of policy with no middle ground or compromise.
.

He said they couldnt pass amendments that would set conditions under which the US would support League actions, conditions which he thought would be rejected by the Europeans and would kill the league. He may have been wrong, but he was hardly doing it out of egomania. See "fast track" trade agreement approval. Congressional amendment of a negotiated treaty is problematic.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Yeah, considering he was a British citizen.

Really!?!?!?

I also missed Alexander Bell getting on the list. The famous USian that he was.

[Cort Haus]

Einstein? Talk about influential-people-stealing.

Where TF is Jimi Hendrix?