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Out
of the 1912 election where Taft and Roosevelt ran against each other, (Thomas)
Woodrow Wilson emerged
as victor with his domestic affairs’ pledge of a ‘New Freedom’.
He had been born a
son of a Presbyterian priest in 1856 in Virginia. Educated at Princeton
and Johns Hopkins University,
Woodrow Wilson committed himself to history and political
science. His successful
presidency of Princeton University and his speeches and writings
earned him nationwide
recognition. A progressive governor of New Jersey for two years, he
was nominated presidential
candidate of the Democratic Party.[132]
Woodrow
Wilson’s personality and foreign policy ideals are quite complex. He drew
his
conclusions for foreign
policy from his understanding of history and his religious beliefs.
„A stern Calvinist,
devout Presbyterian, Wilson believed, he was guided by God’s will.“[133]
An instrument
of God, he intended to personally determine the nation’s foreign policy,
for
this he considered
to have become the leading question after the war with Spain.[134]
With
millions of his compatriots
he shared the ‘missionary impulse’ to advance the world, lead
others into the safe
haven of - American - civilization. In Wilson’s eyes, „Americans
(...) are
meant to carry liberty
and justice and the principles of humanity wherever [they] go, [they] go
out and sell goods
that will make the world more comfortable and more happy, and convert
them to the principles
of America.“[135] This ‘missionary
impulse’ ran alongside the Jeffersonian
concept of equal rights
of nations, yet this missionary zeal was necessarily contrary to the in-
tegrity of other nations.[136]
„This ambivalence [Wilson] never resolved, except in the easy and
prideful assumption
that he, personally, could speak better for other people than they
them-
selves could
- that he knew better than they did what was good for them.“[137]
And in
Wilson’s mind, that was reform. He did not want revolution, he actually
feared it, but
he also despised restorative
authoritarian systems, they only made things worse and increased
the probability of
revolution, radical change. What Wilson desired was ‘orderly change’, at
home as well as abroad.
Only then, he concluded, could humanity be elevated to the kind of
civilization Americans
enjoyed. The accumulation of revolts and revolutions during Wilson’s
presidency made it
evident, that there was a need for change and Wilson felt the moral obliga-
tion (as an Anglo-Saxon)
to take those people by the hand, help them to help themselves be-
come democratic and
orderly.[138] And as the course
of history went, Wilson would seek and
find heathens to convert
not only in the traditional Diaspora of Latin America but in Asia and
Europe(!) as well.
U.S. foreign policy would under President Wilson truly become international
in its objectives and
its implications.
„’Wilsonian’
became a term to describe (...) policies that emphasized internationalism
and
moralism and that were
dedicated to extending democracy.“[139]
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