Introduction
Woodrow Wilson was the first American president of America to be elected from the southern region. He was born Staunton Virginia in a Presbyterian family. Wilson career to the presidency came after coming after a career as a university lecturer, university leader and later on as New Jersey governor. America was to hold elections in 1916; the focus was the world war one that was taking place in Europe, and parts of America (Heckscher, 1991 p. 98). Wilson developed his interested in the general elections by winning nominations in the democratic candidate and selecting Marshall as his running mate. In the his campaign, he focuses, on the idea of keeping America out of the world war by since his ideology was that America was not in any way related to war.
In the general elections, his opponent was a republican heavy weight in politics Charles Evan Hughes of New York state who much familiar with the global politics. During their campaigns, they focused on the world war with every party playing politics with the European war. The republican claimed that the American government should focus on safeguarding their economy by staying away from the war. On the other hand, the democrat’s camp came up with a slogan “He kept us out of war” towards the end of the campaign period. After the election, Wilson emerged victory 49.5% over Hughes 46% with the democrats winning over 270 electorate seats (Green, 2003 p. 56).
After the Wilson assumed office, the world war was still taking place and America hard received much threat from the Germans and other communist countries. During his term in office, he faced critics from republicans who wanted him to develop a strong army in preparation to any threat America would face in the cause of the European war. The republicans felt that his ideology was not to last for long because the war affected Americans who lived outside America. It was until late 1917, Germans sunk a British canal with Americans on board that called for the United States government to join in and end the war.
Early 1918, the German foreign affairs minister sent a telegram to through their foreign ambassador of Mexico to the Mexican government which forced the Wilsons administration into the war. Later that year, Wilson was forced to declare war against the Germans in order to end the world shrinking economy due the cause of the war. Wilson commanded General John Pershing Expeditionary Force to set up a plot to counterattack the Germans who were almost overthrowing the government of Paris. Through the American forces, they were able to do a counteroffensive after the Germans tried an offensive that left them fifty miles away from Paris.
With defeat drawing closer, the German called for an armistice, promptly ending World War 1. Wilson was the man to declare an end of war speech in Paris where he championed for New Diplomacy of an open covenant, which was outraged against the signing of secret treaties. He championed for all nations to join the League of Nations in order to prevent an occurrence of any other war in the future. However, leaders from Britain, France, Italy, and the United States held a secret delegation that leads to signing in of the Treaty of Versailles (Adams, 2001 p. 34).
Constitution Amendments
President Woodrow Wilson used the judiciary to enforce laws that aimed at undermining the freedom of the citizen who denied war. The various bills that were passed to laws include the Espionage Act of 1917, which took charge of imposed heavy charges to citizens found guilty of liaising with or leaking out information on the national defense. The amendment imposed punishments on persons denouncing military duties, denouncing the United States drafts and the laws that were proposed by the Government (Perry, 2003 p. 76).
In the same year, an additional bill was made into law, the Trading with the enemy Act. This had its target as the press and more specifically the printers of the newspapers. The Act had its argument on the doubt that the newspapers printed in foreign languages have information concerning information intentioned to secret and therefore demanded that the Postmaster general to English must translate such papers. Several laws were made making the American people victims rather than agents of judicial amendments. Another law requiring the workers of the copper mines was passed. The copper mine workers who mostly belong to the radical group vacated their working place for Mexico. The most severe effect of these amendments was the landing in prison of IWW leaders among them for instance Eugene V Debs who was charged of cases of denouncing war.
The Versailles Treaty
This was a peace Treaty signed after the end of World War I in 1918. And in order to settle the gloom of the events that happened in Russia and Russian Revolution. The treaty got its name at its signing of the Versailles Palace. Among the three politicians who got recognition in the signing of the treaty were Woodrow Wilson of the United States, Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd George of Britain. The Versailles palace was in consideration as a venue for the signing ceremony because of its capability to accommodate the various officials. On 12th January the Paris Peace Conference opened and various couples of meetings were held up to January 20th 1920 in Paris where a meeting was held with leaders of countries having 75% of the world population, approximately 32 countries were present. The whole process was however; dominated by the big five among them was the United States of America, Japan, Italy, Britain and France.
As a result of this meeting there emerged five treaties which got their identity from the Paris suburbs of Versailles of Germany, Trianon of Hungary, Serves of Turkey and Neuilly of Bulgaria (Green, 2003 p. 146). Woodrow Wilson maintained a moderate voice in the treaty as he new that Germany were to be charged of causing the war. In January 1918 deliverd a speech to American Congress on the fourteen points. Among the points are the declaration of open agreements, free navigatiove all through all the seas, Termination of all the economic barriers laid between countries and clear definition of borders and recognition of allies nationality and the greed for self governance. He additionally addressed on the need to have nations guaranteed territorial and political independence.
The Germans came in this agreement under protest while the USA Congress under the leadership Woodrow Wilson refused the endorsement of this treaty. The treaty had a severe effect in Germany as the core cause of the war it had to bear the loss and it had to pay 6,600 million pounds.
Wilson Woodrow secured the legendary Federal Reserve act in the late 1913. His reconciliatory move was to the bar and cut the influence of both republican and democrat, whose political battles threatened to eat into him politically and so to avert constitutional crises. He had to tame the conservative federal republicans led by the vibrant senator Nelson W Aldrich and the powerful left-wingers democrats led by William J Bryan, the two rivals’ party were against the private banking sector and Wall Street. The democrats wanted a federal reserve that could guarantee the government the rights to print currency and regulate the money flow as required by congress (Perry, 2003 p. 89).
However, the Democrats still wanted private banks to control and be in charge of the twelve federal systems with a regulator and control board chair appointed by the president and approved by the senate. This they argued was to place the cost of producing and minting paper money and coins in the hands of the private banks and still enhance the demands for an elastic currency. However, the politics of the matter arose when the senate placed the federal currency reserve to twelve private banks that was meant to weaken the influence of republicans in New York as majority of major banks were in New York.
This decentralization of federal currency reserve led to fiscal crises as it placed power on private to produce and with minimum supervision to control flow of currency making Washington the biggest player and beneficiary of the Federal Reserve act. The decentralization of the Federal Reserve was a major boost to the president as it served to strengthen the new deal and it was an initiative to finance the Allied and American war efforts through private sector based on competitive tender (Adams, 2001 p. 124).
The Underwood tariff of 1913 was a major boost to president Woodrow as it overwhelmed the changes he made during World War 1, where he employed tactical retreat to the signing of the bill into law by winning public opinion. The new adopted Federal Reserve income tax was used to curb the rising costs caused by lowering of the Underwood tariffs. This led to the creation of a 16th amendment that was to oversee that implementation and creation of a federal reserve system, which to this day is dominant in the global financial markets. This led to the creation of the antitrust act of 1914 that Wilson saw would end the long time battles over the trusts.
During the war, the president learnt that a good investment in agriculture would end the threat of food security that almost faced Americans and thus he established a farmer’s college to liaise with farmers in agricultural production. This also led to the creation of the federal farm loan that guaranteed farmers issuance of low cost mortgages. His major contributions in shaping the federal reserve bureau are very fundamental in the running of American federal reserve’s today and regulation of global financial policies (Green, 2003 p 54).
Wilson where he encouraged competitive bids through the federal trade commission, which regulated and almost brought to a stop unlawful trade acts, broke the old tradition of reserving. He has successfully wowed Congress to pass the Clayton antitrust act, which made certain, trades illegal as the price discrimination and agreements. This prevented underhand business deals. This law was so enhanced such that directors of corporations could be held responsible if they violated the act in their corporate names and acts. This law was a complete improvement of the previous magna carter of labor as it ended union liabilities of labor. Wilson took advantage of this where he addressed labor by cutting less working hours and improving wages, which ensured in his second term there were no labor unrests and strikes.
Works Cited
Adams, Simon. World War 1. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2001. Print.
Brands, H W. Woodrow Wilson. New York: Times Books, 2003. Print.
Green, Robert. Woodrow Wilson. Minneapolis, Minn: Compass Point Books, 2003. Print.
Heckscher, August. Woodrow Wilson. New York: Scribner, 1991. Print.
Perry, Anne. No Graves As yet: A Novel of World War I. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003. Print.
