By the time he walked into the White House on March 4, 1913, Woodrow Wilson had acquired a heavy resume. Son of a founder of the Southern Presbyterian Church who had also served as a Chaplin in the Confederate Army, Wilson was an 1879, graduate of Princeton. He attended the University of Virginia for one year when he returned home probably because of his health. He entered the law firm of an old U of V classmate and passed the Georgia Bar. He was not all that happy as an attorney so he applied to and was accepted at Johns Hopkins where he earned a PhD in history and government in 1886. To date he is the only president who obtained a doctoral degree. He would go on to serve as president of his Alma Mater at Princeton and as governor of New Jersey from January 17,1911-March 1, 1913.Wilson was a member of the Democrat Party. He was a major figure during the Progressive movement of the early twentieth century. As such he was a man interested in change including the changing of the Constitution a document he considered cumbersome. At on point, Wilson stated that we should work to bring "the Executive and Legislature closer together". What Wilson was really looking at was taking our government over to a parliamentary system similar to that of Great Britain's. He was not a fan of our system of checks and balances because it was impossible to lay blame for any problem that might arise.
Wilson's time in office is very interesting in that his first term was consume with the implementation of his domestic agenda. Wilson ran on a platform calling for a "New Freedom". He promised that he would make changes to the antitrust laws, reform currency and banking regulations and revise the tariff. Indeed he accomplished many of his goals.
In 1913, Congress passed and Wilson signed the Underwood Tariff that lowered rates and revenue from tariffs. We made up the shortfall of funds by passing Amendment 16 that gave Congress the right to levy and collect the now infamous income tax.
Wilson initiated a series of acts to help farmers by providing farm extension agent who assisted farmers by teaching them new farming methods. WOW teaching farmers how to farm. Maybe those that did not know how to do that should have been in another vocation.
Laws to curb child labor, assist seamen, help the railroad and the unions were also part of the New Freedom Wilson espoused. A big change came with the Federal Trade Commission whose purpose was to stop trade practices that were deemed unfair.
One major piece of legislation was the Clayton Antitrust Act. This act differed from Sherman in that the Sherman Antitrust Act, passed in 1890, was designed to break up the Trusts, large companies becoming monopolies. Clayton made inroads because it was aimed at stopping what was deemed to be anti-competitive practices in a competitive market. Thus price fixing, forcing retailers to not sell another companies goods, and certain mergers or purchases of other companies could fall under the provisions of the Clayton Antitrust Act. The major move by the government was that the officers of such a company could be held accountable yet interestingly enough was that Clayton exempted labor unions and agricultural organizations.
The argument can and has been made that government had to become involved because the times were such that people were suffering and something had to be done. But is this the way a people who live in a republican form of government are suppose to act? With the Clayton Antitrust Act, Wilson introduced identity politics to the political arena and it was an item that would not only continue to grow but would create an anger within the country that may not be fixable.
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