Wilson, by A. Scott Berg

It is difficult to read a book that is 750 pages of text about a person who is nearly entirely loathsome and unpleasant by an author whose partisan support of his subject shines through because they are partners in the moral corruption which Wilson helped inaugurate and which the author himself exemplifies through his political worldview and his personal conduct. Nevertheless, as I got the book from a friend and a fellow member of my congregation who shares the author’s (and subject’s) loathing of Conservative Republicans, I figured it would be unseemly to avoid reading the book simply because it was a loathsome and unworthy sort of affair. There are some books that one reads for pleasure, and other books that one reads for duty. This is a book in the second category, a book that receives praise or censure not due to its style (which is generally elegant) but primarily based on how one feels about Wilson himself. Those who see him as an icon of liberal and internationalist ideals are likely to overlook what they might view as his flaws–his rigidity as well as his genteel racism, while those who find both his politics as well as his racism to be abhorrent are left unable to find anything to praise this man, and very little to praise this book about.

There is a great deal about this work that is quite frankly offensive. For one, the work is designed in a conscious imitation of the Gospel accounts, with Wilson being viewed by the author as a sort of martyr for the cause of Progressive ideals, to the extent that every one of the lengthy chapters of this work begins with a citation of scripture taken from the Gospels (that referred originally to Jesus Christ) taken as applicable to Wilson as a Christ-like figure. Wilson was a profound believer in divine providence, viewing himself rather immodestly as an agent of that, but he did not realize that his rapid rise to power (much like that of our current president) appears to be more a sign of divine judgment than divine favor. The author appears intent on a massively complicated and hypocritical sort of action, pointing out the many and flagrant acts of unethical and corrupt and wicked behavior on the part of Wilson as a political leader while simultaneously making appeal to pity in pointing out why these were done and why they were (largely) for the benefit of the United States, whether these actions included claiming a transparent administration while having corrupt and unaccountable figures (including people like Col. House and Tumulty who served Wilson loyally for years that would later find they had overreached and would be removed from access to Wilson thereafter, as well as Wilson’s second wife) screen and work through back channels unknown to the public, or whether it involved seeking massive and complicated regulations while simultaneously engaging in crony capitalism to make sure that friendly companies did not suffer from those regulations, pretending a stern moral rectitude while engaging in systematic racism and corrupt dealing. By seeking to whitewash Wilson and present him as a sacrificial victim to Lodge’s hatred (Lodge receives a great deal of undeserved hatred in this volume, which hates him almost as much as Wilson did, and Wilson’s implacable hatred appears far more serious than that of others around him who are treated in a far shabbier manner by the author).

Despite the fact that the author is a competent enough as a researcher to at least include the materials for someone to construct a sensible interpretation of Wilson’s political career, he is everywhere more interested in writing a hagiography than in writing an accurate account. In one particularly poetic leap of prose that serves as the author’s panegyric to the man, the author says of Wilson that: “He knew his next public address would alter the world. For this momentous address, he summoned the country’s most successful speechwriter, one of its foremost historians, one of its first political scientists, one of its most elegant wordsmiths, a spiritual thinker to provide moral grounding, and finally, his most trusted stenographer to get it all down on paper. There in the second-story study, Woodrow Wilson sat alone (p.433).” Prose like this is better suited to Wilson’s passionate love letters than it is to a serious and responsible work of history, particularly of a figure as unpleasant and corrupt as Woodrow Wilson.

One thing that this book makes particularly plain is that Woodrow Wilson had a great deal to do with the moral decline of the United States over the course of the 20th century with regards to its public affairs. Whether we are reflecting on the crony capitalism of our present time where favored political companies receive carte blanche to act without regard to burdensome regulations while other companies are crippled by meddlesome and burdensome “progressive” rules, or whether we are reflecting on the rampant athletic boosterism and academic arms races that seek to use universities as the laboratories of social change in hostility to godly (or traditional) standards of behaviors with ever-increasing costs to students and their families, or whether we are looking at increased internationalism where ideals are easily compromised in treaties and compacts but which serve as the useful pretexts to involvement wherever one wishes (or non-involvement wherever one wishes), or whether we are dealing with government harassment of people for political reasons or executive overreach, all of which are issues in our contemporary society, we are looking at matters where Woodrow Wilson pioneered social corruption in the White House (or before, in his career as the President of Princeton). Even if America rightly recoiled from his radicalism towards the end of his presidency, this author can only see opposition as a result of confusion or fatigue and not principled opposition, and only includes the odes of supporters after he is out of office, looking at Hoover (and especially FDR) as the successors to his government involvement, an aspect that has greatly harmed our national well-being and threatens our national standing and honor, as we have made promises to present and future generations that we cannot hope to keep. Wilson serves as part of that problem as well. What is a book that should have been a much more dark and reflective book about the beginning of our decline serves instead as an unwarranted praise of a far overrated man, whose presidency is far closer to Buchanan than to Lincoln or Washington in terms of its greatness. Sadly, this author is vastly more interested in cheering on his fellow Progressives than in writing a worthwhile or accurate history. Caveat lector.