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Woodrow
Wilson by H. W. Brands Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
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Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Eloquence For a quick dive into the life of Woodrow
Wilson, you can’t do much better than the brief new book by historian H.W.
Brands titled, Woodrow
Wilson. While I didn’t learn much new about Wilson’s foreign policy or
his reputation as a scholar, I learned a lot about Wilson as an individual. I
became more aware of the importance of his skills at eloquent expression
throughout his life. Here’s an excerpt from the beginning of Chapter 2, “The
Irony of Fate,” (pp. 41-5): At
the time Wilson entered the White House, expertise in international affairs
had never been a prerequisite for elective office in America. Only
sporadically during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did the
world at large impinge importantly on the United States, and voters saw
little reason to quiz candidates regarding their knowledge of and intentions
toward that larger world. The Spanish-American War of 1898 gave Americans a
greater stake in global affairs by planting Old Glory in the Philippines, and
the start of construction on the Panama Canal a few years later heightened
American sensitivity to what transpired en route to the isthmus. But
otherwise most Americans continued to ignore the world, and in the 1912
election international affairs played almost no part. This was lucky for Wilson, who was about as innocent on the subject as a man could be and still consider himself educated. He had traveled only a little, and only as a tourist. His foreign language skills were better than most of his compatriots' but didn't extend much beyond the reading knowledge required of history graduate students and, in Wilson's case, were soon lost by atrophy. In the rare instances when his research had required facility in languages other than English, he hired it. The simple fact of the matter was that Wilson had almost no interest in foreign countries and the people who lived there. To the degree he thought about foreigners, he assumed they were rather like Americans, if harder to comprehend. They lived under the same Heaven and served the same God, or ought to. Wilson understood his limitations. "It would be the irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs," he told a friend just before inauguration. The
irony set in at once. For years Mexico had been restive under the
dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, whose iron hand was growing arthritic with
age. In 1911 a faction following Francisco Madero tossed Diaz out—to Europe,
where he shortly died. But dismantling the old regime was more difficult than
erecting a new one, and Madero was pushed aside, fatally, by the forces of
Victoriano Huerta, whom Madero had enlisted to suppress the holdovers from the
Diaz regime. Huerta thereupon arranged his own election as provisional
president of Mexico and invited recognition from the United States and other
powers. It
was at this point that Wilson entered the White House. The U.S. government
and Americans with business interests and property in Mexico had long since
made their peace with the Diaz regime; unsurprisingly, the groups that had
supported Madero registered a certain lack of sympathy toward the yanquis.
What the attitude of Huerta would be was left for Wilson to discover. And perhaps to help determine. American financiers
and property holders lobbied for recognition of Huerta, on grounds that
Huerta could protect them against the revolutionary forces that had begun to
emerge as Diaz was displaced. The professionals in the State Department
suggested that precedent likewise pointed to recognition, in that America's historic practice was to
inquire not how governments came into power but simply whether they
controlled their country's territory and agreed to honor international
obligations. As a progressive, Wilson was unpersuaded by the
pleas of the bankers. As a foreign-policy novice, he was unmoved by the
lessons of the diplomats. As a moralist, he was offended by Huerta's double
cross and complicity in the murder of Madero. As a student of governmental
theory, he was suspicious of the irregularity of Huerta's election. Wilson's misgivings summed to a decision against
recognition. "We hold, as I am sure all thoughtful leaders of republican
government everywhere hold, that just government rests always upon the
consent of the governed, and that there can be no freedom without order based
upon law and upon the public conscience and approval," he explained.
"We shall look to make these principles the basis of mutual intercourse,
respect, and helpfulness between our sister republics and ourselves."
Speaking more directly of—and to—Huerta, the president continued, "We
can have no sympathy with those who seek to seize the power of government to
advance their own personal ends or ambition. We are the friends of peace, but
we know that there can be no lasting or stable peace in such circumstances.
As friends, therefore, we shall prefer those who act in the interest of peace
and honor, who protect private rights and respect the restraints of
constitutional provision." Wilson's preference for constitutional provisions
turned into a litmus test for recognition of a Mexican government. The
historical fact that constitutionalism had never been a significant feature
of life in Mexico didn't bother him, nor the political likelihood that the
present period of turbulence might not be the most propitious time for
planting it there. Wilson's critics noted this, besides remarking that if his
rule about disqualifying candidates who entered politics for personal ends or
ambition were applied north of the border, the field of American aspirants to
office would be substantially narrowed. Wilson couldn't dispute this
conclusion, but he took it as evidence that American progressives had work to
do. The
policy of nonrecognition turned out to be easier to proclaim than to
practice. Suspicious of the State Department bureaucracy, and especially of
the vehemently pro-Huerta American ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson, Wilson sent
his own man to Mexico to assess the situation there. The reports William
Bayard Hale wrote home cast Huerta in a harsh but not dismissive light.
"General Huerta is an ape-like old man, of almost pure Indian blood. He
may almost be said to subsist on alcohol. Drunk or only half-drunk (he is
never sober), he never loses a certain shrewdness. He has been life-long a
soldier, and one of the best in Mexico, and he knows no methods but those of
force." Although his troops were hardly models of martial
devotion—consisting of "captured rebels, released jail-birds and
impressed peons"—Huerta was tough and wouldn't be dislodged easily.
"He is a hard fighter, glories in the exercise of power, and I see no
signs that he will abandon his office, except, as is possible, to take the
field for a few months, so as to render himself legally eligible to take the
presidencv again under the pretence of election." Yet Huerta had enemies, and not Just in Washington.
A group of Madero's erstwhile supporters, calling themselves
Constitutionalists and following the lead of Venustiano Carranza, raised the
banner of anti-Huerta rebellion in northern Mexico. In the south and
southeast, Emiliano Zapata was organizing the chronic rural unrest into a
separate revolutionary force. The
hope of Wilson's nonrecognition policy was that the Mexicans would put their
own house in order, with the United States promising recognition for
successful straightening up. But the house grew only more disorderly with
each passing month, and Wilson was compelled to consider stronger action.
American property- and bond-holders clamored for protection; more worryingly,
foreign governments were threatening to intervene. Wilson knew enough about
American foreign policy to understand that since 1823, when James Monroe had
enunciated his eponymous doctrine, a cardinal principle of American policy
had been to limit the influence of foreign powers (other than the United
States, that is) in Latin America. Theodore Roosevelt had added a corollary
to the Monroe Doctrine, declaring that in the event Latin American countries
reneged on international commitments or otherwise behaved badly, the United
States would chastise them, lest the Europeans be tempted to do so. Wilson
had often thought Roosevelt a bully in international affairs, but as he now
observed the anarchy in Mexico and contemplated British or German marines
occupying Mexico's ports, he couldn't deny this branch of Big Stick logic. Thanks to Brands’ Woodrow
Wilson, I’ve taken to referring to the former President as Tommy, now
that I know that was his first name. I came away with a sadness about Wilson’s
life and the results of his Presidency, and felt I better understood what
happened during those pivotal years, thanks to the skill of Brands. Steve Hopkins, September 23, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the October 2003
issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Woodrow
Wilson.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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