MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR WOODROW WILSON'S DEMOCRACY

 Many people are familiar with the racist history of the Democrat party that continues until this day but many may not be not familiar with their anti woman misogynistic past. The fight for women's rights is nearly as old as the abolitionist and civil rights movement itself. Many of the earliest feminists were also abolitionists. People like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe just to name a few. Frederick Douglas, one of the most outspoken abolitionists of the antebellum era also supported women's rights and attended the first women's rights conference at Senaca Falls New York in 1848. The early focus of the women's rights movement was obtaining the right to vote. The Susan B. Anthony Amendment which would ultimately grant women the right to vote was first proposed in Congress in 1878 by Republican congressman Aaron Sargent. Most Democrats, and some Republicans were against women having the right to vote. The Susan B. Anthony Amendment would ultimately be passed into law in 1919 during Woodrow Wilson's administration. We now know it as the 19th Amendment. Republicans for the most part were for women's suffrage and like later civil rights bills in the 1950's and 60's they could not have been passed without Republican support. 

Since the 19th Amendment passed during Woodrow Wilson's administration I want to focus mainly on his attitude toward women and his resistance to women's suffrage. In my view Wilson is one of the most despicable human beings to ever inhabit the office of the president and is one of the most overrated presidents in American history. He was born on December 28, 1856 in Staunton Virginia. His father was a pastor and former chaplain in the Confederate army. Wilson was raised in the South during the Civil War and Reconstruction. He was a virulent racist and misogynist. As a pastor his father thought slavery was divinely sanctioned. Just ten years before his son Woodrow Wilson was elected president, and as a professor at Princeton University he spoke out against the 13th Amendment, saying that blacks were better off under slavery. He said that "under slavery they had been shielded" from "the rough buffets of freedom". Wilson was against education for blacks and he excused KKK atrocities against them. Wilson hated the idea of civil rights for blacks especially when it came to their right to vote. He wanted the first lines of the Declaration of Independence removed which stated that " all men are created equal" and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights". Wilson also believed that these lines did not refer to women. He is known for inventing the concept of a "living Constitution". I used to think that it was because he wanted to push his progressive ideas by ignoring the Constitution. Actually it was because he did not believe in the legitimacy of the 14th and 15th Amendments. The "living Constitution" gave him the excuse to ignore parts of the Constitution that he didn't like. 

Wilson hated the Republican party because they were the true progressives on race. In an article for the New York Evening Post he wrote that fundamentally the Republican's were denying nature. " The determination of the Saxon race of the South that the Negro race shall never again rule over them." He said that this was "not unnatural, and it is necessarily unalterable." Wilson said that Republican's refused to recognize this. They were "a party which by establishing ignorant suffrage declared to the world... "that there is no difference between an American freeman and an American slave which may which may not be unmade by a mere act of Congress" As the Dean of Princeton University he forced strict segregation. Blacks were not allowed to enroll. at Princeton When Wilson was president he enforced segregation in the government and surrounded himself with segregationists. He also screened the racist movie Birth of a Nation in the White House in 1915 which glorified the KKK. Wilson was close friends with Thomas Dixon who wrote the book (The Clansman)which is what the movie was based on. This movie inspired the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915 which would enjoy its greatest membership during the 1920's and 30's. There would be a Klavern in every one of the then 48 states.

Wilson's attitude toward women was equally as despicable. To Wilson, white men were not only superior to people of color but to white women. He told his publicity director that he was "definitely and irreconcilably opposed to women's suffrage" and that a "woman's place was in the home". He also said that for women to be involved in "public activities of a political nature was degrading to the sex".He called women suffragists "unsexed" and "masculinized". The only woman's right that Wilson would agree to was "the right of women to bear children." Wilson's first teaching job was at Bryn Mawr College, which was all female. He absolutely loathed his time there because he felt that it was beneath him. to teach women Wilson did not believe women should receive the same education as a man. He did just enough to get by as a teacher until he could get hired at an all male college. He was constantly butting heads with the female college dean because he thought he was more qualified because of his sex. Wilson believed that if a woman went to school it should be in order to learn how to run a household but all higher education should be reserved for men. 

Wilson was very fortunate being elected president in 1912. It was made possible by a split in the Republican party. Republican Theodore Roosevelt was very popular with the American people. Staying true to the two term tradition established by George Washington Roosevelt decided not to run again in 1908. He had assumed office early in William McKinley's second term upon his assassination in 1901. Roosevelt had been reelected in 1904. His Vice President and handpicked successor, William Howard Taft won the presidential election of 1908. As a progressive Roosevelt was angry that Taft was too conservative as president. Roosevelt decided to run again but failed to get the Republican nomination because establishment Republicans in the DNC threw their support behind Taft. Unwisely, in my view, Roosevelt formed a third party called the Bull Moose Party. If Roosevelt had stayed out of the race I believe that Taft would have won reelection but Roosevelt split the vote allowing Wilson to win in a close election. It was so close that Wilson was ready to concede but California pushed him over the top in electoral votes. The Bull Moose party polled more votes for a third party than in any election before or since. Roosevelt wasn't that upset with the outcome because he considered Wilson the lesser of two evils. Wilson was a so-called progressive. and more in line with Roosevelt's views or so he thought. America would get an income tax, the popular election of Senators, the Federal Reserve, and prohibition under Wilson which were all bad for America in my opinion. Women would also obtain the right to vote under the 19th Amendment but it was passed in spite of Wilson as we will see. 

During Wilson's presidency the woman's suffrage movement was gaining momentum. He met with numerous women and women's groups pushing for suffrage but the answer was always the same. He said that could not do anything because it was a states rights issue. By the time he was running for reelection in 1916 the political landscape had changed dramatically. There were now twelve states, mostly western states that were allowing women to vote in presidential elections. This was enough to sway the election in favor of the Republican candidate for president Charles Evans Hughes. Hughes was very much in favor of women having the right to vote. Wilson and the Democrats were well known for their opposition to women's suffrage. The Democrats realized that they would have to change their position or they could lose the presidency and the Congress. Wilson refused to change his position before the 1916 election which resulted in a very close election. It is believed that Wilson obtained enough of the women's vote to win because he had promised to keep America out of WW1 which had been raging in Europe since 1914.  Many women favored Wilson because they thought that their boys wouldn't have to go off to war. This was a disingenuous promise because Wilson had every intention of going to war after the election. Wilson was inaugurated on March 4, 1917 and declared war on Germany one month later on April 6th. Franklin Roosevelt would give the same empty promise in 1940 that he would not send American boys off to war knowing full well that he intended to go to war against Nazi Germany as soon as he could after his reelection.

Between 1916 and the passage of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in 1919 there was a full court press to win women's suffrage. The Wilson administration was very dictatorial. It involved itself in pretty much every aspect of American life. There was even a propaganda ministry that spewed out pro Wilson propaganda. The top marginal income tax rate was around 75% which at the time only affected about 7% of the wealthiest Americans. Inflation was rampant in the U.S. It reminds me a lot of living through the four years of Joe Biden. There were two main organizations fighting for women's suffrage. The National American Woman's Suffrage Association or the NAWSA and the National Women's Party which was the more militant and uncompromising of the two. The NWP had two main goals. The passage of the Susan B. Anthony voting rights Amendment and the ERA or Equal Rights Amendment. The NWP began a campaign called the "Silent Sentinals" where groups of women would hold up signs on the sidewalk just outside of the White House property. They were visible to Wilson each day as he rode by in his limousine. The signs usually had excepts from Wilson speeches referring to his false promises concerning women's suffrage. These women stood for hours each day in every kind of weather not saying anything but letting the signs speak for themselves. 

 Wilson ordered the Washington police to begin arresting them and government workers were encouraged to assault them along with members of the military. Over time these assaults grew worse with women sustained serious injuries. At first the Suffragettes jail sentences were light but eventually the judge started lengthening their sentences to months in the Washington D.C. jail and a prison in Occoquan Virginia which was a hell hole. All for the misdemeanor of blocking the sidewalk which they weren't doing because the sidewalk was very wide and they always stood against the fence. This treatment didn't stop the women for just as soon as one group was removed other women took their place with new signs. The ladies were placed in solitary confinement and denied legal counsel. Much like the January 6th protestors. Most were guilty of the misdemeanor of trespassing on capital grounds. The food was so bad that the women weren't able to eat. Many of them went on hunger strikes. This was before IV's and rubber tubes were forced down into their stomachs. This was a painful, nightmarish and dangerous procedure that could easily kill them if the tube accidentally went into the lungs. While there the women were tortured and beaten. Over time influential people were able to secure these women's release before anyone died but they were in very poor physical shape and suffering from malnutrition. 

 Until the 1918 midterm elections the Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress. Although the majority of Democrats opposed suffrage and a majority of Republicans supported it the Democrats wanted to get credit for passing the Amendment before the midterms. They were finally able to secure a very weak statement of support for the Amendment from Wilson who privately hoped for its defeat. In the midterm election the Republicans won both houses of Congress. More Democrats, including Wilson would have supported the Amendment if black women were excluded from voting. The Democrats had tried to alter the Amendment in order to ban black women from voting but failed each time. A vote was finally taken in the House  of Representatives and the Amendment passed. Eighty percent of Republicans voted for the bill and 50% of Democrats. In the Senate the Amendment failed by one vote. Again the majority of Republicans were in  favor. Before passage of the 20th Amendment in 1933 the president didn't take office until March 4th of the following year after the election in November. The new Congress didn't take office for 13 months after it was elected. The new Republican Congress was elected in November 1918 but wouldn't take office until the first Monday in December 1919. That is unless the president called them into an early special session. The suffrage movement knew that the Republicans would pass the Amendment. They were urging Wilson to call the new Congress into session. The only problem was that Wilson was out of the country negotiating the treaty ending WW1 in Versailles France. 

When Wilson finally got around to calling the new Congress into session the Susan B. Anthony Amendment passed in both houses of Congress on June 4, 1919. The Amendment would not become law until two thirds of the states voted it into law. On August 13, 1920 Tennessee had the opportunity to pass the Amendment. Thirty five states had already voted to approve it and Tennessee could be the deciding 36th vote necessary for ratification. There was only one problem. The Tennessee legislature was tied 48 to 48. Harry Burn, a young Republican, was the deciding vote. He was uncommitted but planned to vote against the Amendment because he thought that was what his district wanted. In the midst of the final balloting a page handed him a note from his mother. It read "Dear son, vote for suffrage and don't keep them in doubt". Burn changed his vote to "aye" and because of his vote the 19th Amendment became the law of the land on August 18, 1920. Less than 90 days before the 1920 presidential election. This Amendment added 30 million women to the voting rolls and they helped elect Republican Warren G. Harding who pledged to bring the country back to normalcy ending the Wilsonian nightmare of the previous 8 years. 

For many years Woodrow Wilson was considered one of our greatest presidents by most historians. I always had mixed emotions until the last ten to twenty years. I never thought much of the United Nations and for that reason I was glad that the Republican Congress voted down the League of Nations. Wilson could have gotten it passed if he had just been willing to negotiate with Congress but he was unwilling to compromise. The Democrat party always held him in high esteem. They loved his "living Constitution" concept because it enables them to ignore or reinterpret parts of the Constitution that they don't like. Lately they have become embarrassed by his evident racism and have tried to distance themselves away from the Wilson legacy. For most of my life Ulysses S. Grant was seen as one of our worst presidents and Wilson as one of our greatest. Now that view is changing. Because of Grants stance on civil rights and other factors he has risen in stature and Wilson has decreased. Wilson looked at Democracy the way that modern Democrats look at it. In a narrowly defined way. Making the "world safe for democracy" only meant making it safe for the white male. He did not mean white women or the black, brown, red or yellow people of the world. Wilson didn't care much for First Amendment or the Constitution. Wilson was for censorship. He couldn't see the hypocrisy of his democratic vision when he was mainly responsible for squelching democracy in his own country. Much like the modern Democrats who are always talking about saving our democracy. 

  Every policy they push is designed to destroy democracy. They are against securing the vote from fraud. They care more for the welfare of illegal aliens and criminals than they care for the welfare of American citizens. They want to silence debate and they will do anything to stop it up to and including murder. The Democrats are against self defense. They are against parental rights. Democracy is not for the political opposition. It is only for people who believe as they do. It is not for straight white males, conservative women, conservative blacks, conservative Hispanics, conservative Asians or conservative homosexuals. Like Wilson's democracy It is limited to those who agree with them. Especially the elites. Wilson looked down his nose at others because like most elites he thought that he was smarter than everyone else. He was in the same class as Karl Marx, Margaret Sanger, Bill Gates and George Soros. We are not worthy of their democracy.