Woodrow Wilson And The Presidency

Woodrow Wilson and The Presidency

From the beginning of the 1912 election, the people could sense the new
ideas of Woodrow Wilson would move them in the right direction. Wilson's idea
of New Freedom would almost guarantee his presidential victory in 1912. In
contrast to Wilson's New Freedom, Roosevelt's New Nationalism called for the
continued consolidation of trusts and labor unions, paralleled by the growth of
powerful regulatory agencies. Roosevelt's ideas were founded in the Herbert
Croly's novel, The Promise Of American Life written in 1910. Although both
Wilson and Roosevelt favored a more active government role in economic and
social affairs, Wilson's favored small enterprise, entrepreneurship, and the
free functioning of unregulated and unmonopolized markets. Obviously, from the
results of the 1912 election, the people favored Wilson's New Freedom.
Wilson entered office with a more clear cut plan of what he wanted to
achieve than any other president before him. The new president called for an
all out assault on what Wilson called "the triple wall of privilege": the tariff,
the banks, and the trusts. In early 1913, Wilson attempted to lower the tariff.
Wilson shattered the precedent set by Jeffer-son to send a messenger to address
Congress when Wilson himself formally addressed Congress. This had a huge
effect on Congress to pass the proposed Underwood Tariff Bill, which provided a
substantial reduction of rates. The new Underwood Tariff substan-tia...

Woodrow Wilson And The Presidency

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