all of this history happens here in the washington navy yard. and it is on lincoln's last day of life. he actually comes to the navy yard and visits dahlgren here in the offices but he also visits a ship that's actually at our next stop that we'll talk about. >> sir. >> yes. >> when was the first design that would penetrate an ironclad hull? >> during the civil war. next on american history tv, a panel of historians discusses president woodrow wilson's controversial legacy, his diplomatic skills, views on imperialism, and the tension between wilson's progressive ideas and his opposition to civil rights. the organization of american historians hosted this event at their annual meeting in new orleans. it is an hour and a half. good morning, everybody. i'm going to go ahead and get

started because we're at 9:00. but i'm going to do this. i'm going to read you a paragraph, just in case any of you wandered in without actually checking your program or the door, and you can guess what that paragraph what this panel is about. it is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. but the right is more precious than the peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest to our hearts, for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples and shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. to such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that

the day has come when america is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and peace which she has treasured. god helping her, she can do no other. as you may have surmised, in case you didn't already know, this is a panel on woodrow wilson's legacies. a panel put together by the society for historians of the gilded age and progressive era. we hope to spark a lively conversation. should you wish to continue this conversation or any other, please do join us for the reception that is occurring this evening from 5:00 to 7:00 on the fourth floor balcony k. so i'm going to turn to introductions. i'm adrian lynn smith. i am a historian at duke university. i'm going to introduce the panel in the sort of order of presentation which is the order of the program. we have first mary rinda,

professor and chair of the history department at mount holyoke where she was also the founding chair of the gender studies department. a scholar of north american imperial formations, histories of racism and a cull -- and cultural history, among other things, she's the offer of "taking haiti, military occupation in the culture of u.s. imperialism, 1915 to 1940." she is currently working on a book entitled entangled in the things of this world, mary mayan, the promise of sovereignty and the course of empire." next we have samuel schafer, associate dean of the faculty in history and athletics at st. aubon's school where he teaches history and coaches football. he holds a b.a. from the university of north carolina which turns out is good at both history and 59 lathletics. and a ph.d in history from yale

where people tend to be smug, but for other reasons. not you, of course, sam, and excepting others at this table. where he wrote a dissertation entitled "new south nation, woodrow wilson's generation and the return of the south 1880-1920." next up, eric yelling, associate professor of history and american studies at the university of richmond where he's won awards for teaching and for faculty mentoring. professor yellen is the author of "racism in the nation's service, government workers and the color line in woodrow wilson's america." he's currently developing a new project that considers political -- the political and social perceptions of the social security administration after world war ii. i'd like to point out that we have very good teaching represented on this panel, which when we consider how to get our work out to a public, is of course one of the first lines of doing so. we also have two other

presenters who are well versed in speaking to both scholars and publics. julian zeletzer, professor of history and public affairs at princeton university. co-editor of princeton university press's "politics and society in 20th century america series" and authors newspapers articles and columns related to politics in the united states, including two recent books, "the fierce urgency of now, lyndon johnson, congress and the battle for the great society," and a volume called "media nation, the political history of news in modern america." and finally, and featured actually in that edited volume, is david greenberg, professor of history and of journalism and media studies at rutgers university new brunswick. he is a frequent commentator on the national news media on contemporary politic and pub welcome affairs, specializing in american political and cultural history.

his recent book, "republic of spin, an insider history of the american presidency," examines the rise of the white house spin machine from the progressive era to the present, and the debates that americans have waged over its implications for democracy. so, please join me in expressing our enthusiasm and excitement for them. [ applause ] >> thank you so much, and welcome. i come to you from the 1830s and '40s and return happily to this moment of the early 20th century to which i will return. i made my way back to that earlier moment because i have been thinking and wanting to be able to understand better something about the complexity of sovereignty and the connections between notions of

sovereignty that bear on the ways we think of the self in the society and political system, and sovereignty of nations. i've been interested in moments when someone stands up and says, "it is possible to do more than we've done. it is possible to extend sovereignty farther," very much in the way that woodrow wilson did. but how, in the course of making that attempt, these moves toward sovereignty end up with great frequency recapitulating the relations of power and the exclusions that have been in place. and i am pleased to be here having us think about woodrow wilson and his legacies in this moment when it is so important for us to be understanding and thinking maybe freshly about liberalism, what it is, what it has been, what its uses in power are, what its limits are, and how we go forward with that in

this particular moment. i am going to begin us with some words from woodrow wilson in his campaign of 1912. i came to this, in part, thinking let's look at how we bring together some of the questions about the international context, questions about immigration, and thinking about woodrow wilson, what he had to say about immigration in particular. and how that comes together with his story of the history of the united states. so one of the statements that really stood out to me in looking back over the record of his policy and comments in this, looking back on the history of the united states in 1912 in wilmington, delaware. wilson stated, "it has been the privilege and the pride of

america to settle her own affairs without drawing a single tear or a single drop of blood from mankind." now, he said that in 1912. he of course did not yet know what he was headed into and the ways in which he would put to use the united states marines in haiti and elsewhere. but to my mind this statement of a kind of purity of america, a kind of innocent origin of the nation that has been maintained, is central to one of the problems that we need to take up in relation to wilson. the idea of a purity that needs to be maintained and of a nation that is uniquely devoted to carrying forward the program of liberty without violence. in the same year, a little bit earlier, he, in thinking about

how the united states had come together from the peoples of europe, and somewhat embroiled in difficulty because of statements he had made about immigration earlier, he was called on to clarify the record. looking back again at the history of the united states, he stated that the united states had set itself to task of setting up an asylum for the world. "we have carried in our minds, "he said, "those men who first set foot upon america, those little bands who came to make a foothold in the wilderness, because the great teaming nations they had left behind had forgotten what human liberty was." so we set up an asylum. for whom? for the world. we are the trustees of the confidence of mankind in liberty. if we do not redeem that trust,

we are then most to be pitied for --" and this is what really stood out here -- "the more glorious your dreams, the more contemptible your failure." i don't think the point, at least for me, is to render contempt here, but for us to look at the relationship between the grand dreams that woodrow wilson set forth and the ways in which his understanding of sovereignty, his understanding of the kind of self that would make possible an american nation, an american project, brought with it certain very clear limitations and allowed, and even fostered, kinds of violence that he himself imagined himself to be free of, and imagined the nation to be free of. the more glorious your dreams, the more contemptible your failure. also in that same campaign, and

again addressing immigration, said the word "american" does not express a race. it expresses a body of men pressing forward to the achievements of the human race. it's an intellectual venture to be an american. you've got to have a mind that can adjust itself to many kinds of processes to be an american." and here, of course, he was railing against the phenomenon of the hyphenated american. don't call yourself a hungarian-american, a polish-american, an italian-american. call yourself an american. if you are too invested in the particularity of your identity and your place, you will miss the project that we are in, which is to recognize that the interests of any must be the interests of every man. and i understand that in saying

that, he was partly railing against the radicalism that sought, in his view, to foment interests and class interests that would be the undoing of the nation. but i think it is a very interesting idea for us to consider that notion that interests are -- if they are the interests of any, the interests of all, an ideal that he set out in the process of rejecting that notion of hyphenated americanism. so it has been pointed out that wilson went some distance toward insisting on a kind of pluralism that made up america, that america wasn't a racial essence of an anglo saxon heritage, though, of course, he hailed that h that as essential. he assimilated our diverse

riches into the project of achieving what it is for humankind to address. of course, in the process, he rejected the notion that certain peoples could be assimilated into that project, and was pushed in the course of this campaign to come out and make a statement very, very clearly opposing asian immigration, opposing citizenship of japanese and chinese people, calling to the idea that these were peoples who were incapable of being assimilated to the nation. and what's more, whose presence stood in the face of and called on the government to undertake its role to protect americans and workers from unfair competition. and in doing so, to hold to the ideal of the nation. he said that -- am i at time? oh, my! i'll say one or two more things. and this is a quote.

"oriental coollyism will give us another race problem to solve and surely, we have had our lesson." so, i thought i would be saying a bit more but what i want to emphasize here, in some of the work on wilson i think there is an interesting discussion about his shortcomings. was he too invested in honor? was he too stubborn, and so forth. i think actually these become important questions when we ask about the ways that his individual character was actually linked with a much broader cultural disposition and question that his suborness, for example, on the issue of race, on segregation, on the place of african-americans, that his stubbornness on a variety of questions got in the way of his achieving the full vision he had

has been laid out. but might that point us to some of the ways that the vision itself held a kind of arrogance about the project of america that needs to be interrogated in relation to international policy, in relation to immigration, and so much more. i will leave it there. that's a start to the conversation. thank you. [ applause ] >> that's fascinating to think about wilson and americanism, what it means to be american at this point in time, i think. our panel was asked to think about -- and it emerged out of the controversies over the past year or two -- over wilson and his legacy in places like prince son. we were asked to consider the good and the bad, to draw connections between them and to discuss some of the recent scholarship on wilson. i'm going to try to do a number of those things and to start broad, then end up narrow, then

hopefully ask some questions at the end. starting with the notion of the word "legacy," legacy technically is a gift or bequeath, something in your will which implies intentionality. i think wilson was very intentional about a lot of what he did. i think it is also worth thinking about some of his unintentional legacies, things we see now that he might not have seen then. our question here is what is this gift or will wilson has bequeathed us intentionally, or, more broadly, unintentionally. no short, and not to go over too much of most what of us already know from what we heard when we were 16, then in college, and so on. wilson is, without a doubt, one of the most significant domestic -- and significant presidents the united states has ever had. domestically his new freedom, legislation that he championed and tariff and antitrust legislation and child labor act

and the clean antitrust act and federal reserve, all of these things are significant domestic achievements. his progressive ideology, hooking up on what theodore roosevelt had done and bringing that to a national stage. his action as a president being the first president to go and speak before congress since john adams, and going to congress many times more than any other president, i think since even and working with congress in that sense and in many ways sort of laying the groundwork for other so-called activist presidents like roosevelt and lyndon johnson. internationally of course, his leadership of the united states before and during its entry into world war i. then of course his legacy with his wilsonianism and his vision of post war world. and as scholars have pointed out more recently, along with his good, there was also bad. right? and adrian and eric in particular have pointed out some of the darker side that went

hand in hand with these great achievements of wilson's, the segregation of the departments that happened under his watch, the exporting of racial imperialism that mary talks about. and so that has come to light. it's been around for a while, but more and more in the public eye recently. i would like to take a few minutes to talk i think about a related legacy of wilson that can speak to both the good and the bad. that's a legacy in the lens of thinking about woodrow wilson as a southerner, which i think gives us another lens on to him, on to his administration, and also on to his legacies. so in a sense, thinking about how understanding his roots might better help us understand what his legacies are and how those two aren't separated in many ways, how the good and the bad shouldn't be separated. so of course, wilson as a southerner has, among historians, long been a topic of

conversation, is he southern, is he american, arthur link wrote about the southerner as american, the american as the southerner. there is always this question. so yes, woodrow wilson left the south inknow, yes, woodrow wils tried to get rid of his accent. yes, during his campaign, he worried that many southerns may see him as too radical and seeing his cabinet too southern. his constitutional thinking was much broader of the theory. at the same time, he spent his formative years, first two decades of his life in the civil war of the reconstruction south. he told southerner of the south of one place of the world where he does not need to be explained anything. he married a southerners and he surrounded himself with southerners and half of his cabin members were born in the south. his cam nbinet members who were

closest to him -- in his administration and almost the whole time, they were southerners. woodrow wilson carries with him of a world view that's shaped in the civil world reconstruction south. it was changed and shifted. i would like to give three spoe specific examples of how being a white southerners shape his legacy. first of all is his election. three course of the nation voted for progressive candidates between roosevelt and wilson and eugene. but, americans at the time also acknowledged that the election of 1912 was a moment of national reunion. there were headlines, the new york tribunes said the induction of wilson summit national ties.

there were articles how the south were back with us. in the article it talks about this was a great thing of democracy, how a region of 50 years before have been in arms of the country, these are the great things of democracy, it can observe the civil war. wilson also acknowledges this, i would believe that my selection as president by the people of the united states means the final obliteration of everything that defined the great sections of this country. yes, instrument of reunion. it is a symbolic legacy and it had meaning to him and people of the time. same time, his election did not just represent the union, it was a restoration of the south. it has great power of the federal government and disproportion power and the south is back in that and the

time in the south, there are dozens of articles talking of the south being in the saddle. what this means so wilson points cabinet members born in the south and also for the first time in many years of both houses in congress were held by the democratic party which had a d disproportion part of southern leadership. this is leading us to the second point of the domestic effect of southern add minuministration o new freedom. obviously, most obviously as my colleagues have pointed out. within these executive apartments we have seen the desegregation and mcadoo and his assistant williams. that in a sense as the chicago defender noted wilson's presence freed racism in washington, d.c.

at the same time, it is worthyiworth worth thinking about of the new freedom in a practical sense in how it was carried out working with the southern led congress. the congress of 1939 of the twelve senate committees were shared by southerners. and so wilson went to congress all this time and he was talking to men who have grown up in the south like him made it the same time as him. the tariff that's passed is the woodson's tariff. it was pushed by the senate from alaba alabama. wilson goes between to congress was burleson, the long time house member. so thinking of house southerner havi , how it affects of the new

freedom. how southernerness shapes his approach of world war i in the after math. wilson admitted he was not prepared of foreign policy. when he wrote about it in his textbooks and article of reconstructions, he learned two lessons of reconstructions. he learned what happens when the victor voiced hard terms on republican rules as dia disaste and he uses word of humiliation and destructions. he talks about african-america,s slaveries when they were put in charge -- in his approach of world war one and after math.

i am not saying there were not factors, there were many factors. it would be accepted under humiliation and duress and leaving a sting and resentment and a bit of memory. those were exact same words he us uses description of how southerns felt during reconstruction. >> the mandate system says there will be self determination but their certain former colonies will be under the european countries, he used the same words to talk about how blacks in the south in reconstruction needed the toolage of white southerners. in a sense, thinking of the legacy of woodrow wilson as a sense of the legacy of

reconstruction. legacy of reconstruction understood by a white southerner of a historical memory to him can help shape how we think about hour own historical memory. just a final point here. i think it is constructed for us to think of the legacy of woodrow wilson not as good or bad or good or bad separately but as other piece. since that's what makes it more interesting if he were just good, that would not be true. as a teacher when i am trying to explain american history and get my students to understand what history is and humanity is and that if we have a leader that is flawed, that actually when we talk about flaws among this, it brings both integrated focus and helps them the understand the motivations and the roots of historical actors and the humanity involved in what we teach. i find teaching of woodrow wilson in credit bricredibly fud

powerful. thank you. [ applause ] >> thanks, that was perfect for what i want to do. i don't want to rather than -- i thought i would backup a little bit and just in some ways play the role of -- giving you my sense of where i think we are with wilson. i am going to tart of february 2004. so in that eight months, african-americans in southern maryland remembers woodrow wilson bridge. the bridge that connects the prince george's county, a suburbs known for middle class population of suburbs a. the bridge was being rebuilt in

2004. bet bet betty haggard francis, the daughter of the government worker requested that the medallion, they're about this big, it is like as giant coin. she asked for it to be left off of the maryland side. as you know but the surprise with which white people responded to france's request and this was in the post and maryland and washington. the under lining for me was the different memories woodrow wilson can evoke. now, for historians, it was not as famous for his work and the end of world war i and his legacy, he's famous for losing it all in the end. in summing up wilson's biographers and contadodorothy

written, all have to describe the quality of wilson and his perm personality and his failing in paris. of his own judgment in powers and adhering to his principles combined with ambition and desire for power. not so much positive of a character individual. despite these flaws, it was written by white skeptical skeptical -- his motivations and i think the refusal to reckon with his impact and experiences and personal interactions that wilson actually brought to his work in the white house. this leads to a series of kind of dualty of excuses. wilson loved black people, it was just that he was a southerner. wilson respected women, it is

just that he was so victor yim . he's a passionate lover and he felt bad about it. wilson was an internationalist, he did not think it included haiti or much of the world outside of europe. hesitate stubborn but he was so articulate. and he got sick. now, i do not hold the rational view of wilson either. i confess to the opposite. i confess of my time studying of wilson made it difficult to fully -- so that raises a question for me and the "roundtable," what do we mean when we talk about woodrow wilson. do we mean the man and the man alone. do we mean his ideas and intentions? do we mean the impact of his actions and his policies? what do we mean by his legacies?

legacies for whom? these questions always arise in the history of presidents and other leaders. and i see a certain unwillingness and we can debate this. i see a certain unwillingness to merge the insights by asking these questions of wilsonian history. his biographer leading articles called "the case for windoodrow wilson." we view wilson and finding ourselves making excuses for a man who flaws should give us pause. perhaps, it was wilson's position in the academy or a founder of our discipline. i don't want to get too analytic or similar stympathy for the pr causes or his nack for memo memoriable faces. the only fair assessment of

wilson was the good of the man out weighs the bad. you see this discussions that princeton had of all of the letters defending wilson and making this claim. the goodout weig out weighs the. they're always just that. i want to echo a claim that sam made, there is always that failings and not other piece with the man with who the man was, what he accomplished or the progressive politics he helped to popularize. to me, it feels a little odd to call up the descendent of servants or objectors and tell them, well, the good out weighs the bad. the closes scholar that i know tried to merge wilson's racism and his politics was the 2006

article, he was at the root of civilism and challenging us of race in liberalism and hierarchy. i think we are bin guyeginning interrogate this in the terms that this suggests. i don't think the role of the hi historian to keep the counting shapes. >> i think we need a human view of woodrow wilson. one desire to affiliate ourselves with him and scholars or even as liberals. i have to wonder looking at the scholarships as a whole may we be willing to weight the federal reserves or against the looiivef black americans. woodrow wilson's attack on america's black middle classes

matters. wilson not only unleashed his administration loaded with white supremacy. he provided a critical language for institutional racism. the idea that the needs of any must be overwhelmed by the needs of many. worthyness and this is a jim crowe's vocabulary connecting the late 1900 century. wilson's biography should not balance this fwaact out of our history. thanks. [ applause ] >> good morning, so i feel i have been thinking about this as someone who teaches in the woodrow wilson's school since the moment my students stood

out, some of them orderly, princeston fashion. where this conversation was coming from -- woodrow wilson have reappeared on the national stage and some of the debate have been this easy good areas, is it a bad debate or a good one? some has been about how we think about his legacy. i will throw out for the purposes of the "roundtable" of what i have been thinking ability what a-- about policy c that take place during this period that continued to shape a and of the way we think of politics this day. first, is political nationalism. this is a place where many people start the discussion of the legacies of this

administration. obviously, towards the end of this presidency, woodrow wilson laid out a conception of how the united states should interact with the world, they're revolved around the centrality of international institutions and alliances. i think some of the panelists have said that the limitations of his vision both here and in the united states and limitations of how it is played out were well documented but the basic principles is something that we have been coming back to again and again since that period. so the importance, the centrality and the operational capacity of working through international institutions would be for me legacy number one. two, would be in an era today when we hear talk of

deconstructing the administrative state and a term that most people did not think of coming out of the circles, putting into the oval office and then turn and use in different ways by steven bannon. i do think this is the period in america political history where a move and conference in the administrative capacity of federal institutions of one of the notable part of the wilson's administration. when this debate broke out of the role of race which i will get to, for me, this was always something that i had focus on when discussing woodrow wilson. the amount of institution building that takes place during his presidency is quite remarkable from the creation of the progressive income tax and the notion that we could administer system like this both in war and peace on a permanent

basis to the beginning and coordinating and centralizing our banking system through the federal reserve and through new regulations on the economy like the creation of the ftc. the period of this period is quite central and sets up some of what we'll see with other presidencies. third and this is something that i think maybe harder to place in this day and age. woodrow wilson believes that partisan governance. when there is been calls in washington since the 1940s that we need a system where bparties are stronger where there is more coordination of the party of the president and woodrow wilson and the book and congressional government is always the model

that's referred to. when wilson worked with the southerners and congress and when wilson appeared with congress, he was not only trying to introduce a more active presidency, he believed that we needed a system more like the parliament system of europe. he believes that american government was too fragmented and the interest of congress often overwhelmed the national interest of that parties could put on the table. it was an idea that partisan ship was good. and that we needed to create rules and institutions where parties can have a stronger hand in decision making. i think this was a key idea of

woodrow wilson and what's amazingly studying of his presidency is how much he tried to act that way. he did not mind the ugliness of parliament ship. we are talking about ways in which that may go too far. that's one of the importance legacies of both him and his presidency. a fourth one which we'll talk more about the risk of the presidency. this is something that many of the room written about and he's written a lot about this. it is hard to disentangled his presidency from the more

coersive aspect of the state from the stiflinging of decent the violation of civil liberties to the sometimes unnecessary expansion of government that we see into surveillance and information. the way the war tie presidency moves in this direction immediates to start with what happens when this president went to war. and finally, let me come back to the question where it started which is race and the presidency. i think this is more of this debate about wilson and wilsonian liberalist. i think there is now been a significant and critical mass of scholarship that have shown liberalism before the 1960s from

early 20th century to the 1960s was built on this racially divided political system. the deal with the southern democrats to avoid forms of liberalism really interfered and unsettled the racial order of the south was a fundamental and defining characteristics of liberal politics until the civil rights movement started to bring this to a close. and i think the mistake of focusing too much on woodrow wilson and focusing too much on his presidency was almost takes it out of focus. of where liberalism was during these decades. there were obvious reasons for this. it was not obviously him being a southerner, it was also about the character of congress where the southern kdemocrats retaine

a firm hand and firm control over the legislative process through the committee system that is in place until the 1960s. i guess my response was always when the wilson debates started not to focus too much on him but what scholars like cat nelson and robert liebermann had been writing about helps make sense of the dualty of the administration where these two parts of the progressive era that really cannot be seen separate anymore. so the debate that we had about wilson was really a debate and a tougher look at the character of american liberalism before the 1960s. so all of these are just a few parts of the legacies of woodrow wilson but the legacies of american politics in the early

1900s and 1910s that i argued and believe and not only supporting of our historians and ourselves trying to understand the moment but a reoccurring theme of the political development of the united states since that time right through our day today. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you all, my colleagues have panelists have done such a thorough job in covering what i have to say today. i want to echo to be the first point of redundancy of where sam and others made about the futility of thinking about this good offout waying good, of

somehow quantifying and tallying up these different legacies contributions and arriving some formula. i am asked of doing survey of ranking all the presidents. for all questions that's being asked, that's where he belongs. these things are silly measure. it is much more interesting i think as maybe eric says think of the human wilson will take him in all and seeing these pieces of him as apart of a single individuals.

i see many of the same ones as most prominent. i don't know if anyone stress of the importance of a strong and activist presidency that wilson along with theater roosevelt before him fashioned that really is so much apart of our political landscape today that we kind of cannot think otherwise. i tell my students to name some of the greatest achievement of the presidents before teddy roosevelt and woodrow wilson and not only they cannot name the achievements, they cannot name the president. that's not a coincidence. the president was understood as a different office in the system. the argument 2 of the constitution, not article one which was congress. the press core as it is when it covers politics in washington and preroosevelt and premckinly, did not go to the white house.

there was no press room or secretary or press releases for them. they went to congress of the galleries and don richie had written wonderfully of the 1920s washington press core and it focused on congress. that have fundamentally changed permitly there after. it is impossible to imagine going back to a system where the present is not central to the political oral in washington. and along with the strong and activist presidency comes the politic presidency to use another term from the political scientists of a presidency that's engaged and sounding out politic opinion and trying to devine public opinion and wilson

as a political theorist had a theory of this. his view was not that the president imposes the vision. it is a theory well suited for someone like wilson who had great different gifts of intelection. again, i share the view that the wilson saw the importance of common good and common interest as so many progressives did over factual pieces of coalition. and then could bring that back in his own language and getting support from the through his rhetoric. wilson as the great speech maker, the one moved people to tears with his rhetoric

performing an important function in his view of political of leadership. the second piece that is not unrelate to this unrelated to this was wilson's piece, it is the legacy of what we call progressive achievement. i think in times like ours and even during the obama's presidency where we have seen how hard it is for presidents to really accomplish a lot that there are so many constraints and even on the strong activist president that presidency of pr and wilson left us with. one has to appreciate all the more the rare periods where a hell lot was accomplished. there were really three. wilson along with some degree of tr before him. fdr and jfk, and lbj and of the

lo long sweep of the century. those are the presidents going down as having fundamentally reshaping our economic life and social life in dramatic ways of reforms. >> third, there is no question, i think the liberal interna internationalism that william jennings bryan -- wilson helped to develop. there were those who wrongly sort of tried to see the bush to foreign policy if you will of an expression of p-- you see it muh more and now with a donald trump presidency who has come in basically declaring an end to the post 45 world order.

he laid out the system of rules and institutions and policies that have presided for the last 72 years that's belated of the wilsonian's legacy. none the less of the world that we live with is quite successfully for so long. it is not forgotten that he won the noble peace prize. he was recognized at the time for that. um -- there is a few other point that i could respond to what some of my colleagues have said which i will try to do briefly. i think it is important to think about wilson as a northerner as well as a southerner. do we think about barack obama as a product of hawaii or a product of chicago?

well, both, but more of chicago. wilson's experiences in new jersey politics, fighting of the political machines and he really did change significantly and in particular, i think his views on race while he always retain the racism of the south, he was not, he was actually quite different from the ben tillmans. he was not a fiery and racial demagogue on this. wilson can be seen as a figure who helps lead the transformation of the democratic party away from its southern core which is very much was in his time. of course, accounts for the fact that he appointed so many southerners and southern reactioners like burleson for

the cabinet. for him not to have done so would be of democratic presence today to not appoint a cabinet with women or filled with color. it would be incredible. wilson was a product of his party in that time. finally, last comment i will make about this question of liberalism is wilson was part of a project where liberalism was changing. i am in the middle of reading a wonderful new book by brad snyder called "house of truths." it is about littman and a lot of intellectual of this period seeking to define the status of principles about civil liberties and free speech that comes out of the world war i period. we are germinating during the period of the 19 teens.

it is important to think of this legacy and wilson's of what is in transition and what is being born and develop and rather as a static menu of policies that we can examine and either, you know, pass approval or rejection upon. in my remarks there and look forward to the conversation, thanks. >> so there are many things that we could continue to say to one another or places where i am attempted to chime in. i think the responsibility thing for me to do as moderator of this panel is open up the conversations to y'all and see where you would like to chime in. >> i would like to comment of

the conversations of congre congress -- of racism specifically northern -- and oftentimes we focus on the racism and hearing from congress and from southern congressman senators. i am wondering of the complicity of northern congressmen in this period. >> can you identify yourself? >> yes, i am fra moderator from school of hawaii. >> so two things briefly. one is that -- he was a congressman from illinois whose district was becoming black and blacker by the day. imagine of the district committee hearing bills to segregate washington, d.c.,

transportation, and it is a matter in a number of his northern colleagues who blocked that and washington, d.c. is never segregated in terms of transportation and of residential housing and mostly through covenants and red line and machinery. there are congressmen who blocked the full agenda of tillman and others and i think it is going to arrive of wilson o f the administration and the nation as a whole. the other thing is on the other hand, the republican party at this point is completely disenfranchise and roosevelt proved that republicans can become a national party by bringing in white southerners by -- and so the party as a whole i think is comply sit and

removing african-americans from the body politics and when party showing up, they don't challenge the wilsonian -- this is happening. it is overwhelming of seniorities of democrats having -- >> that's the key of the wait of power and congress was moving and continuing to be in the hands of the southern democrats. >> i think there is complicity well beyond the southerners. this will be clear around the 20th century. >> in this moment, the southerners have the calls in these committee and also could be one of these figures and different sides of these issues but i think that was pretty

fundamental to the process of the way seniority was and leadership ladder of the chamber. [ inaudible ] >> the person he had to deal with was jack williawilliam jam. i don't think of wilson as a p populist but a liberal.

>> and people have advanced of different reasons and some people say because of republicans and tr, it was not a vision of liberalism. especially i think ironically, the backlash against the civil liberties suppression work gave further strength of a robust civil libertarian that we see coming out of the war. so i think wilson fits that and we do see -- and by the 20s and

scope of the reaction side of thing. there is a real change. it is a liberalism that steeps in a national politics of white supremacy. one of the comments and in some ways eric yellen on this subject, it makes and declaiming against particularism ironic, right? >> yeah. >> also, do you think that that liberalism of the fdr era becomes a labor base liberalism. that's different than what you see underwood dr woodrow wilson. the fundamentals taking place of

the cio and -- and it is important that i think to keep that in mind. and now with the final out of character of liberal politics through the 1970s. >> i think part of the legacies is that he mastered in his remarkable ability to craft language of where he insisted on the universal but in ways that consistently coded a set of relationships around and in a way of what was evolving at the time is a struggle over that universal language.

on the one hand it enables people to call on it and insisting on something more intended on the other hand continues to function as a rejection and a refusal to acknowledge the relation of white supremacy. >> that was not unique to progressivism. this was something progressivism learned from the early republicanism of the early republic of the wiggs of this classicness of the wiggs and the common interest. this idea of a common interest of common good super seeded of the particular -- of one that wilson included and shared but it was not at all, you know,

peculiar or you need to know. the founder of nacp, the term of the 20th century and over the course of the 1920s and 30s, focusing on labor and -- i think something happens in the teens that just allows liberalism to drop that issue. it is reconstructing finally goes in the passing in some ways and not thinking of the threat of government of southerners. but, race can just become, we can embrace the kind of color blind later base with liberalism. [ inaudible ] the lady behind manafoford. [ inaudible ]

>> the german language. and this is also and i might change the subject a little bit. i am surprised that no one has talked about the international legacy of woodrow wilson. woodrow wilson was the first mobile president, he was a super star when he came to euro and he left a tremendous disappointment. in his role of shaping the way of united states foreign policy in the 20th century beyond perceived internationally and cannot be over rated. there is still sort of a s-- i consider the myth of wilson and he's basically responsible for

the second world or the rest of it. other nations any of italy may have similar thoughts. i understand that would be probably -- the subject for a different panel and probably sponsored by shaffer. never the less, i wonder if any of the panelists may want to speak to that. >> i will begin by saying that i see these very much. in other words, ways of which wilson negotiated of questions of race and domestic context had everything to do. the fact that he can speak to audiences in the united states and talk about if sylem of the united states offering the the world all along the european nations and immigrants and never meaning there to refer to asian immigrants, for example, is of a

peace of his extraordinary statement and goals and rhetoric of a small nation which were, of course, was not -- he did not intend the way that was then taken by various people around the world who called him to, to call on him to say yes, and what about us and no. the great disappointment is this is of a peace with making a broad and having and putting out a broad vision that's universal but much more specific in the ways of which it carries forward of relations of dominations so the mandate system would carry forward of a kind of program that rejected the language of colonial but carry it in an important way. >> the disappointment points to limitations of presidential powers who are eminent with it

because in the one hugh granand clearly, him and tr, on the international stage, you see it vividly but at the same time but the league of nations is kind of early reminder of the continued power that congress will yeelie as other political and political intuitions throughout the century. it was not his failures o r limits. as he and himself was always g cognizant as a political scientist of the boundary of this activist presidency was boeing going to confront for the rest of the country. >> the vision of sovereign state like a vision of a sovereign poppipo populist is found on a notion that the state is defined and recognizable as having integrity

when it meets certain conditions and so that framework has always allowed for the notion of failed states and for an idea that the international system rests on some body recognizing some states as legitimate and others as not and i think again, that's a parallel between domestic and international context. >> wilson thought people were making capable of defined states and certain people were not. >> i was intrigued like most wilson scholars beared little littllittle little -- al paul was criticized for being so naive to think that she can press suffrage on the

republican and the irony of it is it took republicans in the midterm of 1918 to took over both houses and defeat wilson domestically and international. again, more of a comment than a question. i am interested on any of your research on this panel touched on. >> well, i will say about that and i do think that wilson's perspective was that, wilson was invested in a certain idea of what it meant to be a citizen that was fundamentally male and fundamentally a program for men that his vision of a nation crafted out of the brotherhood of different people, all white men but the gender piece of that was fundamental and that created one of a member of the kind of blocks on his vision.

>> i mean, should we added that like a good politician that he changes, calling a flip-flop today but supporting it vig y s rously -- he relenquishes. >> and what leads to the fl flip-flop that this would not change the character of women so they can become sort of -- as he understand women to be, as you know sort of respectable women who will fulfill their duties while doing other things while

politically he has to give them. president taft was so nice and ge gentleman that on his -- that was true by the way. that's really not my point. i want to name three quick facts, a statement of facts to you. the first is a taft calling on the president and this was after

wilson nominated. after he left the presidency. the second fact is that under taf, taft, more than double the number. the third fact in terms of congress which roosevelt stood for and antitrust, taft set aside than roosevelt. now, why do we as historians have blinders that tend to skip from someone like roosevelt to someone like wilson and ignoring the thing in the middle. i will skrus poijust point that. >> i would say many reasons for this. the political memory in which presidents we categorize as innovators and part of it as

this whole project of whether you are talking about tease polls that we get for who is the best president for a focus on credit and innovation on particular presidency. one of the great things about with some political scientists of nelson paul wrote about is how different policy changes don't take place with any single presidency. they take place over decades with different actors pushing for issues from members of congress or entrepreneurs on a certain question to activists and social groups. different president or usually any issue or like any scholarships or hoover rediscovering on apart of the new deal. you see how this gradually build. part of this is even of the

nature of the panel that's a great panel, i am glad i am on it. when we have these legacies of good or bad or what happened when, we often get a debate that won't be answered satisfactory. >> let me add a couple of things to that. there are legitimate reasons that taft is not in the pantheon in the same way. for one thing, he was a one term president and that is generally a mark of, you know, if not failure or non-greatness in the way we look at these things. there were ways in which you can make the case and he was more progressive than tr and there were a lot of ways where you can argue the reverse of the affairs

and others and when they ran against each other in 1912, there were little doubt that tr was seen as the one who was embodying a radical progressism. taft relative to wilson stems to how they were frame and position in that race based largely on taft's record of government. finally, taft explicitly rejected of the theory of activists of presidential government of roosevelt of his biography -- has a different conception of what a president should do, he's much more modest and reluctant and endorsed in a full thrown theory of the presidency. i think that has sort of also shaped the way he's been under stood. and you know, his name i learned

my favorite piece about his gurt is that his name is not anagram with a word with all, i am fat. the >> i am all in favor of bringing taft back. republicans arriving in the south and saying we can leave particular social issues to the local and i think that's a critical term for the republican party in terms of thinking about republican party investment social policies that will affect african-americans. taft will lead that and roosevelt will follow when he runs for later and so this is the moment in which we -- it is not in the 1960s, it will shift. there is the kind of retreat of social policy and endorsement of the local that taft is really

important. >> i hear that in the last two questions of an echo of the way that area ra eric framed his stuff. some things come up or we ultimately go back to particulars sort of streams of discussions and not others is that for all of the vitality and intellectual vibrance y or ethi studies, there is a way where analysis when we are talking about presidents or legislatures or policies or what have you are still not fully viewed within our discipline as truly being political history. so we can talk about those in some venues. if we are going to have panels

on presidents or presidential history. those things are going to get s sublimated. doctor romano. >> thank you. >> my question in some way related to that. i was interested of where it started and where it comes from which is great controversies o f things being named after woodrow wilson. it was interesting that no one took a position of things named by woodrow wilson. i want to post a question on wilson's scholars here. what i heard about him is he's a full human being and there is good and bad and put him in historical context and he's a representative of a larger political culture. all true, his historians making things complex and commemoration likes to make things simple and celebration and honoring this person. i am wondering what do you say

to the students who walk out of the woodrow wilson center, maybe 2006, students did a protest of the middle school which was his school and they the faculty at the history department to say come and support us in walking out of our middle school because we are named after a racist. and i'm like, many middle schools are named after racists but who do we want to celebrate in our culture. two questions. what would you say -- i'm sure you've all been asked, why do you think he's become such a lightning point symbol right now given the complexity that you've laid out here, what's he being reduced to and why wilson abecoming that lightning rod. . >> i'll start, i guess. i have tend today take a position on most -- i wouldn't say all of these renamings as sort of the wrong way to sort of

address our history because to use your phrase, it reduces these figures, whether it's wilson, jackson or any number of others to take the worst thing they did and find this deplorable and then to say therefore we can't can commemorate or respect or admire -- anyway, i was listening to npr and john hockenberry who was one of the more fast ill, would be opinion eighters on npr. he said, oh yeah, franklin roosevelt, the guy who interned the japanese. oh, go back to what you were saying. this is what we're coming to? that's all that you have to say about franklin roosevelt? you know, there are certainly times when a reassessment or renaming is called for.

i think the y'aale's handling o the calhoun issue the second time around was artfully done. but you go to europe, there's monuments to napoleon and monarchs who did all these things and they're still there and nobody thinks we're blessing all of their worst deeds by continuing to have that history as part of our public life. i think there's something a little bit wanton and in the sort of let's take the names off, let's level. the better ways to go, i think, are to expand. i think this is what princeton is doing. you have more plaques, more information of giving a sense of why the school is named for him, good, bad, complex, that that

more educated method is much better than the index of who's got to go. >> i actually found it personally difficult as this unfolded and i didn't have a clear answer. i speak as a professor, not aspirin ta as prince tton. my instinct was the renaming wouldn't have the kind of effect that even the students were hoping for, my instinct was and it's still to some level it's difficult once we start down that process with figures whose major purpose wasn't simply racial segregation or anti-semitism or sexism, kind of figuring out who are we taking off, who are we not taking off, what does it mean to leave someone else who did things that we don't like today while taking this name off. is that some implicit okay. i can tell you there's lots of buildings named not only at princeton but you go into washington, you go into the richard russell building, the

person who filibustered against the civil rights bill. so there's many paths we can take. on the other hand, i did learn from the students from the protest who spoke about what is the necessity now that we know this, now that we know this aspect that eric has written about, for example, of keeping the name because it does mean something to walk into the school and now that we know that, see the name. i still lean towards i would prefer when something like this comes out to inject funds into kind of serious, scholarly investigation into the problems of race that continue with us today, or to use it in that direction, but i guess just as a personal story, i walked out feeling more uncertain by the time the debate ended. i think a lot of the students had genuinely good points and were coming from a good place

trying to figure this out. >> are we going down the line? >> i'll let you go first. >> i just want to add two things. one is that i think he's a lightning rod because i thought what the students did was brilliant in terms of using wilson to raise a much bigger issue which is i think a failure at universities to think about the difference between access and inclusion, right, and so that places like princeton with their incredible financial aid have managed to become somewhat accessible but not inclusive and i think that was the larger point students wanted to make, that this is not a comfortable place to be black. it wasn't and isn't and won't be for a while. so i think that's the lightning rod. that's why. i think the question for how to meet that, i took a lesson from how georgetown's been dealing with its issues because what i

saw in georgetown's response -- so this is the issue that georgetown is financially financially viable today because it sold people. what i saw in georgetown's response i think wisely was going back to roots and thinking about what does it mean to respond to this issue, this crises as a catholic institution. what does it say about us. institutions are going to have to respond to these questions by soul searching, by thinking about who are we, what do we stand for, what are our values. frankly, i don't think i saw that in princeton, or maybe we did. maybe this is who princeton is. so i'm also ambivalent about just sort of removing names. i decided to split the baby and say you should remove the name from the dorm because this is where people have to live and this is their home. and then i'm more ambivalent about the school but i think it's a much bigger issue of what does the institution stand for, for whom does it exist and what happens there. what kind of container of

learning and growth is this. i thought they were brilliant to say -- point at this building and say it's not a great container for learning and growth. >> i'm going to go back to the audience because in the words of the great philosopher -- did you -- >> i really do? i'll try to be brief. i just want to say that we have so much renaming to do. we have a lot of renaming work that needs to be done, and i think this goes to the fact that we still have such a limited idea of our own history. i mentioned i brought back wilson's line about the wilderness and holding up the greatness of what the people who first came to north america did to set something up because i want to suggest that we have to look at native american history, we have to look at african-american experiences. we have so much renaming to do. but i also wanted to say that wilson's desire to hold up the

life of america and the purity of america, the question here about what is the pure story we are looking for and will changing the name -- i think there are good reasons to change the name. i'm not disagreeing with that, but if we stop there and think that we've done all right if we've just taken that name off the building without looking at a much thorough way at the problem. i have more to say but i'll stop. >> that is what the university of north carolina did with their renaming. the very north carolina thing, they removed, white supremacists didn't give it a white supremacist name and just call it carolina hall as if that's not steeped in the history of race. the absurdity of it. >> i want to add -- >> david, we're at 10:29 so the people who have not commented on this probably should go and then we have two pink shirts who wanted to ask a question and we'll end with a question without answers.

if you have something to say. >> just two quick points. i think as said earlier, the questions about wilson and race are more questions about liberalism and what it means and i think that is what's going on with the naming. it's not just about wilson and the race and the name on the wall. it's about society at large. then i think -- not that you didn't mean this, but we need more renaming and we need more teaching. that's part of the renaming, teaching students and adults. >> i'm going to ask y'all to pose your questions and then come to the reception and we'll all work out answers. >> one question. first of all, race is not simply a domestic issue for wilson. i think you make a false claim there. that's a global issue. dubois was the first really to tap into it. this is quite a global issue and the treaty of versailles is full

of race. so it's not just the united states. second, wilson's a presbyterian, and none of you all acknowledged that but presbyterians, they normally acknowledge their sin, which princeton has not done. part of being a presbyterian which wilson was and defines him, i think years ago he was called the presbyterian nietzsche in the new york review of books. so it seems to me that as a kid who grew up in this city, i got monuments all around me, and they tell me a lot about -- my grandmother had to live right by lee, the statue of lee, lee circle, old folks home. so i think you speak of wilson out of your sense of privilege. i see wilson has a very different kind of person. so you all acknowledge where

you're coming from as a part of confessing your sin. thank you. >> i'd like to push back a little bit. i'm elizabeth pops from texas a&m. i think that we're profoundly l underestimating wioodrow wilson. i understand that he raised expectations and therefore led to a lot of disappointment. one might say like lennon did. articulating a vision that was at great odds with the overall vision that the world had been sort of perking along for many, many centuries. i think that we tend to think, oh, he just didn't know that. he said these 14 points, he didn't get the racial implications, he didn't get the implications for the self-determination of small states like vietnam ultimately, and i don't think he was that stupid. i actually think -- >> he wasn't stupid -- >> i'd like to finish.

i think that we tend that think that because he cites out poland or of course he also talked about the break-up of the on e ottoman empire, that was more continuous than discontinueous with the history. i recently finished a book on woodrow wilson and women's suffrage, so i think it's interesting that -- by the way, this wasn't the liberal consensus, this was the conservative consensus. the main obstacle was raise actually a ll actually. woodrow wilson became the staunchest proponent of women's suffrage and i don't think he did it because he didn't know that it would disenfranchise black women. in the same way, the self-determination, he did know that this would have down the

line consequences for empires all around the world, that this tells us something about wilson. now, he was kind of quiet about it. why is he quiet about the fact that women's suffrage will enfranchise black women, he knows if he says a word that dictates acknowledgment of that, there's no way this will pass at all. there's not a single person in the u.s. congress who stands up and says, oh, i understand that the 15th amendment was okay. there is not one person who defends black suffrage at the time of women's suffrage. the fact that wilson pushes for that tells us something we need to acknowledge more fully than we are and i think we are in this panel about him. >> efficacy of social movements in making people do things that they don't want to do. okay, one final question, no answers, and then we have to go because it's 10:35. >> what perspective on the panel which is not -- this is a great panel, very diverse. the fact that right wingers hate wilson much more than left wingers and without any of this

nuance. >> he's with glenn beck more than he's with us. [ applause ] >> thank you, everybody. thank you, all of you. see you at 5. interested in american history tv? visit our website, c-span.org/history. you can view our tv schedule, preview upcoming programs and watch college lectures, museum films and more. american history tv at c-span.org/history. up next, christie coleman, ceo of the american civil war museum talks about the history of civil war monuments and

memorials. she touches on the controversy surrounding the museum's decision concerning a donated jefferson davis statue and then takes a look at how social forces during different time periods in america influence the creation of civil war statues and monuments, especially in the south. this hour-long talk was the opening session of a day-long symposium held at the library of virginia in richmond. as you know, we're here today to explore an aspect of civil war history that's very much in the news. it actually has been often in the news for many years. some of you no doubt find the often rancorous public debates about civil war monuments troubling and just wish the debates would go away. but you know it won't just go away. so the constructive thing to do is to accept the debates as evidence that the subject of our institution, the american civil war museum, is relevant to