I have a simple question that requires a longer answer. Who was a greater President? Teddy Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson?
Both won Nobel Prizes(Roosevelt was first)
Both great trust-busters
Both of different parties
Both served two terms
Give the nod to the guy on Rushmore.
If it weren’t for Teddy splitting the party Wilson wouldn’t have gotten elected and the question wouldn’t occur.
Right now it would help if someone could get Bermuda out of hibernation and onto this thread.
T. R. all the way.
In fact, you have already exhausted all of Wilson’s good traits and several of us can go on at great length on Wilson’s weaknesses.
Wilson was a rigid, unyielding idealist (as opposed to TR who was a visionary). Wilson perceived anyone who opposed him as not only a threat, but unworthy of respect. He carried on personal vendettas against people who had “offended” him. (When the prosecuting attorney who had gotten the conviction against Eugene Debs added his name to a petition that the ailing old man be pardoned or, at least, have his sentence commuted, Wilson dismissed the very idea with contempt.)
He put in place a Postmaster General who effectively resegregated that branch of government, stripping large numbers of blacks of the responsible positions that they had held–including many who had held fairly high positions in the South where they were a visible sign that blacks could serve in positions of authority with competence.
He named an Attorney General who pretty much destroyed the Fourth and Fifth Amendments in his zeal to destroy the recent immigrant communities who had made their homes, here, between 1890 and the end of Wilson’s second term.
Whereas TR negotiated a successful end to the Russo-Japanese War, Wilson took his Fourteen Points and his rigid personality to Versaille and did nothing to prevent the humiliation of Germany. Then he brought his League of Nations–including a charter that basically said that colonies of Europe should be grateful for any crumbs of limited self-rule that they were thrown and stop whining about independence (that they were so ill-suited to have “bestowed” on them)–back to the U.S. where he didn’t have the wherewithal to get even that poor project adopted by Congress.
His version of the Alien and Sedition Acts (the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act) were at least as bad as, perhaps worse than, the original laws of 1798.
He supported any and every (business/colonial) incursion into Central and South America (making TR’s Panama grab look positively benign in comparison). Several thousands of citizens of Haiti, Nicaragua, and other countries were killed by our military, setting up the problems we have had in that region to this day.
He authorized the invasion of Russia to support the already-defeated “Whites”, leaving a bitter feeling among the victorious “Reds” that extended well into the Cold War. (For all our great fears of a Soviet invasion, they could remember that we had already invaded them.)
Even in his “progressive” victories we discover that, for example, he never supported women’s suffrage (for which he gets credit because Congress and the states passed it during his term).
Sorry. I’m not one of his fans. I always figured he dishonored his first name.
Tom~
Oh God…
Two Socialists…
I think the damage they both did to this country is about equal.
tomndebb wrote, re Woodrow Wilson:
European colonies winning independence? Gee, I wonder why the United States would identify with that idea. 
Regardless of how you feel about Wilson’s idealogy, you have to admit he was a failure as president because of his ineffectiveness. Teddy Roosevelt, like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, was a master of politics; he didn’t just talk about ideas, he got laws enacted.
As for Wilson as a person, Tom gives a good outline of Wilson’s failings there. Basically, Wilson was so sure he was right in his principles he didn’t feel any need to be right in his actions.
Plus, Wilson said “Birth of a Nation” was “history written with lightning.” What did he want for an encore - “Protocols of the Elders of Zion?”
Your deep sea diving suit is ready, me brave lad.
I seem to recall there was a very argumentative thread on this subject before, but Wilson was definitely a racist; not just by the standards of 2000 but by the standards of 1900 as well.
Throw in FDR and Lincoln on that one. Lincoln may not have been a Socialist, but he did plenty of damage.
Yeah! And what about that no-good Socialist Thomas Jefferson! That guy had the gall to completely violate the 10th Amendment (by buying the Louisianna Territory) before the ink was even dry on the Bill of Rights! Did I mention that he owned slaves, too?
What politician is not an hegemonist?
Between Theodore Roosevelt (thank God it was not, as I suspected from the thread title, Emperor Roosevelt) and Woodrow Wilson, I suppose I have to pick Teddy since Wilson was on duty for both the creation of the Federal Reserve and the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment.
For those interested, here is the Internet’s best site, in my opinion, for getting Lists of US Presidents in just about any way you please.
Yeah, and Coolidge and Hoover caused the Depression.
That’s only what President Taft wanted you to think!
Libertarian wrote:
Now now, income taxes were Constitutional before the 16th Amendment. The 16th Amendment just plugged up a misunderstanding as to what qualified as a “direct tax” arising out of Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan and Trust (157 U.S. 429, from 1894).
Constitutionality will be declared for whatever expedience the rulers find necessary.
“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler
Good topic, and good posts all around.
I vote for TR as much the better president. Wilson promised not to go to war, and then he did so right away (Wilson was inagurated for his second term in March 1917; the US declared war on the Central Powers in April of that year). If there was ever a useless European war that we should have stayed out of, WWI was it. Not only did Wilson get us into it, he then proceeded to royally mess up the negotiations that concluded it, coming out with a dictated peace that the Senate refused to ratify (the Treaty of Versailles). In the middle of all of this, he had a series of strokes and was incapicitated for the last eighteen months of his term. His wife and a couple of his intimate advisors ran the country during that period, though he left office in 1921 and didn’t die until 1924.
Caveat: Had Roosevelt been President, he certainly would have gotten us into WWI long before. And Teddy had the luck to be Pres during the first decade of the 20th century, when there was an economic boom on, which he gets undeserved credit for.
By the way, the OP says that Wilson was a great trust-buster. He wasn’t, and TR talked more than he really accomplished, but at least TR’s vision was right.
And, by the way, Wilson was probably the most racist President we’ve ever had, certainly much more than the unfairly maligned Harding, who had the guts to go to Alabama and preach equal rights long before that was cool. (He also appointed Jews to his Cabinet, something Wilson would never have done) Not only would I rank TR above Wilson, I’d put Harding and Taft above him as well. Wilson was a failure as President. He’s down near the bottom of my list.
Libertarian wrote:
If that’s the case, then what difference does the 16th Amendment make at all?
Lawrence wrote:
“I cannot say for certain that negroes are even human.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Wilson might be a little sneakier and probably has more intelligence than TR, but TR definitely has at least 50 pounds on Wilson and more power, and probably has the reach advantage. Wilson’s only hope is to dance around TR and sting him with quick attacks. All TR has to do is get in one lucky punch or get Wilson cornered and it’ll be all over.
TR KO’s Wilson in two rounds.
Plus, Teddy Roosevelt carried a big stick.