It gives them nations, instead of neighborhoods, to look upon and think about.
Woodrow Wilson
The Public Record
Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, he was born in Virginia and raised in Georgia before moving to New Jersey, where he became a prominent political figure. Wilson was a key leader of the Progressive Movement, advocating for reforms such as antitrust legislation and the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. His presidency is also noted for significant events such as the United States' involvement in World War I and his efforts to promote the League of Nations, an international organization aimed at preventing future conflicts.
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These are the forces which have established the drift towards democracy.
When all sources of information are accessible to all men alike, when the world’s thought and the world’s news are scattered broadcast where the poorest may find them, the non-democratic forms of government must find life a desperate…
Exclusive privilege needs privacy, but cannot have it.
Kingship of the elder patterns needs sanctity, but can find it nowhere obtainable in a world of news items and satisfied curiosity.
The many will no longer receive submissively the thought of a ruling few, but insist upon having opinions of their own.
The reaches of public opinion have been infinitely extended; the number of voices that must be heeded in legislation and in executive policy has been infinitely multiplied.
Modern influences have inclined every man to clear his throat for a word in the world’s debates.
The influences of popular education, of the press, of travel, of commerce, of the innumerable agencies which nowadays send knowledge and thought in quick pulsations through every part and member of society, do not necessarily mould men for…
They may only confuse and paralyze the mind with their myriad stinging lashes of excitement.
They may only strengthen the impression that “the world’s a stage,” and that no one need do more than sit and look on through his ready glass, the newspaper.
They overwhelm one with impressions, but do they give stalwartness to his manhood?
Do they make his hand any steadier on the plough, or his purpose any clearer with reference to the duties of the moment?
They stream light about him, it may be, but do they clear his vision?
Banking is none the less hazardous to the banker’s capital and taxing to his powers because the best writing of the best essayists is to be bought cheap.
Nothing establishes the republican state save trained capacity for self-government, practical aptitude for public affairs, habitual soberness and temperateness of united action.
There is almost nothing in common between popular outbreaks such as took place in France at her great Revolution and the establishment of a government like our own.
Our memories of the year 1789 are as far as possible removed from the memories which Europe retains of that pregnant year.
We manifested one hundred years ago what Europe lost, namely, self-command, self-possession.
Democracy in Europe, outside of closeted Switzerland, has acted always in rebellion, as a destructive force: it can scarcely be said to have had, even yet, any period of organic development.
Democracy in America, on the other hand, and in the English colonies has had, almost from the first, a truly organic growth.
There was nothing revolutionary in its movements; it had not to overthrow other polities; it had only to organize itself.
It had not to create, but only to expand, self-government.
It did not need to spread propaganda: it needed nothing but to methodize its ways of living.
Liberty is not something that can be created by a document; neither is it something which, when created, can be laid away in a document, a completed work.
Politicians like Woodrow Wilson
