WILSON, Woodrow. - President of the United States of America, born on 28 December 1856 in Staunton (Virginia), died on 3 February 1924 in Washington.
The son of a Presbyterian minister, he spent his childhood and youth in the South (Georgia, North and South Carolina), where he witnessed the horrors of the Civil War, which left an indelible mark on his soul. In 1875 he entered Princeton College (New Jersey). Even then, he showed a marked interest in the study of political issues. In 1882 he settled in Atlanta (Georgia) as a lawyer, but the legal profession was not for him, and the following year he abandoned it to enroll at Johns Hopkins University, where he specialized in the study of political science. In 1885 he published the work *Congressional Government*, a highly successful analysis of the legislative power in the United States, with insightful observations and criticisms of the shortcomings of American parliamentary practice. Having earned his doctorate in philosophy in 1886, he taught history and political economy at Bryn Mawr College, Wesleyan University, and finally, in 1890, he was appointed to a chair at Princeton. From 1902 to 1910 he served as president of that university and substantially modified its teaching methods and programs. In 1910 the Democratic Party offered him the candidacy for governor of New Jersey. Elected on 8 November, he promoted several important measures, including an anti-election fraud law and legislative provisions for workers disabled in the workplace. In 1912, after 45 unsuccessful ballots, he was nominated by the Democratic Party Convention as the candidate for President of the United States. The division of the Republican Party into two factions (one led by Theodore Roosevelt, the other by the official party candidate, outgoing President William H. Taft) favored W.'s election, and with less than half of the popular vote he secured 435 of the 531 electoral votes. He was re-elected in 1916 and remained in office until January 1921, when he was succeeded by the Republican Harding.
A pacifist, W. recognized the danger that the coexistence of the two blocs of the Triple Alliance and the Anglo-French-Russian Entente posed to world peace. Strengthened in this conviction by Colonel House, his friend, who played a major role in shaping U.S. foreign policy during those years, he sought to ensure world peace through an agreement between the two rival power groups. Thus, in late spring 1914, he sent House to Europe, but although his proposals were in principle accepted by Germany and England, they led to no positive result. With the outbreak of World War I, W. strove to keep America neutral, but Germany’s relentless submarine warfare provoked U.S. intervention alongside the Entente in April 1917. To the papal note of 1 August 1917 urging the belligerents to make peace, W. responded evasively, considering it overly favorable to German militarism. On 8 January 1918, in a speech to Congress, he outlined a fourteen-point peace program for an armistice with the Central Powers: abolition of secret diplomacy; freedom of the seas; removal of economic barriers between nations; reduction of armaments; resolution of the colonial question; Russia’s return to the international community after the restoration of the Tsar; independence of Belgium; restoration of France’s territorial integrity and return of Alsace-Lorraine; delimitation of Italy’s ethnic borders; autonomous development for the nationalities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; recognition of national rights in the Balkans and Serbia’s access to the sea; protection of minorities in Turkey; independence of Poland; and the establishment of a League of Nations. The fourteen points contributed to the Central Powers’ laying down of arms in November 1918. However, in the subsequent peace negotiations in Paris, W. lacked the resolve to oppose the nationalist and chauvinist ambitions of the victorious powers. He did succeed in establishing the League of Nations. Upon his return home, he faced hostility from part of the U.S. Senate, which refused to approve the full text of the League of Nations Covenant. The opponents were not in the majority, but they prevented the achievement of the two-thirds quorum required for approval. The United States would therefore not become a member of the League. In September 1919, at the end of his presidential term, W. suffered a collapse and lived in seclusion in Washington until his death.