Woodrow Wilson and the politics of morality

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Woodrow Wilson came to political power in the United States at a time when many Americans were troubled by a seeming contradiction between the inherent premises and promises of American life and reality. For, as the nineteenth century gave way to the complexities of the twentieth, government was too often characterized by an ineffectiveness in dealing with international tensions and by an inability to resolve internal stress. To these problems Wilson brought the Christian morality and nineteenth-century liberalism of his Presbyterian background and genteel education. He developed an inspirational faith in the powers of a new morality to lead men to find and correct the maladies of the body politic and, indeed, of the world itself. He led Congress to great achievements and his party to large triumphs. And while his inflexibility caused him to fail in his hopes for his greatest project, the League of Nations, his failure was for that time only, as history has since made abundantly clear. -- from Book Jacket