So what is Wilson? A racist? A casualty of an antiwar movement? He is both and much more.
Editor's note: This past week, after months of consideration and a special committee's report, Princeton University announced that it would keep Woodrow Wilson's name on the university's School of Public Policy and International Affairs. Removal of the name from the school was one demand of the Black Justice League, a campus group that cited his racist past.
By James Terminiello
What do Richard III, Mark Twain and Woodrow Wilson have in common? They are all undergoing a reassessment. Two of them are being unfairly judged with contemporary eyes while one is getting a deserved rehabilitation after centuries of smear campaigns.
In today's light, King Richard III of England appears not to be the super-villain portrayed in the highly entertaining Shakespeare play. The king seems to have been a victim of the "history is written by the winners" syndrome after he ended his reign on the thorny side of the War of the Roses. It appears that his brief term as king was not littered with innocent corpses. And, now, his rehabilitation is being carried out on a scholarly, dispassionate level.
Not so for poor Mark Twain. The tide turns against him almost like a seasonal disorder. When the wind is right, someone "discovers" that Twain used the "n-word" in his writings. Guilty! The brand of "racist" is then liberally applied and schools are pressed to remove the villain from their bookshelves. The fact that Twain was writing in the vernacular of his time and was trying to imbue literature with common speech escapes the unthinking zealots. Throughout his his life, Twain was a friend to black people, opposed slavery, and was a staunch anti-imperialist who abhorred pressing white values on native people.
Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, does deserve his reassessment. A native of Virginia, he served as the 28th president of the United States, governor of New Jersey and president of Princeton University. Not a bad resume. He was, however, a racist. As president, Wilson took pains to see that federal offices were segregated and apparently had civil-rights leader William Monroe Trotter tossed out of the Oval Office. These are indefensible actions from a 21st century perspective.
So do we toss this baby out of history's bathwater?
Consider this. In 1919, this same racist embarked on a tour across the nation to promote our membership in the League of Nations. After the carnage of the World War I, he hoped this new body would help to resolve international conflicts before they became hot and bloody. It was a quixotic journey, met with rational and irrational resistance from many quarters and doomed to failure. The effort wrecked his health and shortened his life. Had he succeeded, perhaps there would not have been a World War II. Instead, it outdid Word War I in scope, violence and degree of butchery. At least he tried to prevent it.
So what is Wilson? A racist? A casualty of an antiwar movement? He is both and much more. He was also a frail human being who was a product of his time. His greatness may be tarnished, but it cannot be denied.
To apply our sensibilities to people from other periods in history is a disservice to them, to ourselves and to history itself. To revisit the past with fresh, probing eyes is a good thing. There is still much to be drawn out of the well of the past. However, to judge the past by our current standards accomplishes nothing.
Do you think that George Washington would have approved of gay marriage? If not, does that make him a bigot?
Gandhi once counseled Jews in Nazi Germany to neither flee nor resist their persecutors. Instead they should offer themselves up to be killed, since their "suffering voluntarily ... will bring them an inner strength and joy." Does this horrible misreading of the way the world works make him an anti-Semite or a fool?
Sir Isaac Newton, the brilliant seventeenth-century mathematician, was also deep into alchemy -- the transmuting of lead into gold -- which, um, doesn't work. Does that make him a rotten scientist?
Read a few paragraphs of any ancient religious text and you will find all sorts of debauchery, mayhem and deity-sanctioned slaughter. Does that mean we should burn these books and walk away from all they have to say?
Those who have gone before us have made their marks and committed their follies. All should be judged on balance and not on a flaw or foible that we may not find to our liking today. We will all pass into history. When our times are examined, I hope those in the future look kindly upon us poor, ignorant fools.
James Terminiello writes from Glassboro.