Yahoo reports that Princeton is rejecting Woodrow Wilson’s racism.
“The trustees concluded that Woodrow Wilson’s racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school or college whose scholars, students, and alumni must stand firmly against racism in all its forms.”
Link to Yahoo article: Yahoo Article
When Wilson took office he reversed integration of the Civil Service System. He stopped the hiring of blacks and the removal of blacks who had already been placed in Civil Service positions and replaced them with whites.
Wilson also invited the makers of the movie “Birth of a Nation” to show the picture in the White House—the first move to be so honored.
The movie is strongly pro-KKK.
At one point a black activist objected to the movie in person to Wilson and Wilson had him thrown out of the White House and banned from ever returning.
Wilson went to the WWI peace negotiations in Paris. His religious righteousness caused him to seek to punish the German survivors of WWI (mostly women and children.) The terms were so harsh that John Maynard Keynes, British adviser for the treaty terms resigned from the proceedings and wrote a book in which he criticized Wilson for planting the seeds of WWII. He said that starving women children would create an entire generation of German youth who would hate the Allies.
He was right. His book became a worldwide best seller, WWII resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent human beings.
Wilson was a tyrant. He even denied Japan and Italy a seat at the table even though they had fought with the Allies against the Germans. The representatives from the two small nations felt they and their homelands had been insulted and they left the meeting. But their homelands remembered.
UPDATE
T he role of Wilson in the Treaty of Versailles is not understood by most Americans at the time and apparently still today. John Maynard Keynes’ book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace describes the negotiations and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Keynes was the world’s leading economist and advisor to the British contingent. One can read his description of the inner working of the victors as they stripped Germany naked and draw either one of two conclusions about Wilson’s role. Wilson presented to the world his Fourteen Points in a speech. The idea was to outline a peace settlement to the European conflict. The Germans reacted very favorably to these Points and said so. Soon thereafter the Treaty negotiations began in France. There is no doubt that the Germans did not receive the benefit of the enactment of Wilson’s Fourteen Points, but they were impoverished. This abandonment of the Points took place in Wilson’s presence and with his approval. Keynes, who was present at most of these meetings concluded, and he goes into this at length, that Wilson was either a dummy or a liar. In other words all Wilson was after was to secure public approval in the United States for the creation of the League of Nations. In other words his eye was on his future standing in World History and he thought the League of Nations would make him a great statesman for all time. So he agreed to everything the Europeans wanted. He lied to the American people and to the Germans when he published the Points. But he might have been a fool and was hoodwinked by the Europeans. Keynes goes into great detail in his description of Wilson’s ignorance and arrogance. We will never know. But we do know that Wilson was recognized as the leader of the negotiations and he agreed to terms that impoverished the Germans and led to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Either Wilson did not try to protect the Germans or he did not understand what was going on around him. Either way, millions of innocent human beings were the result of his action or inaction take your pick.