• Once mildly conservative, now militantly progressive
• Professor from
Princeton
• Elected governor of
New Jersey in 1910

• Woodrow Wilson
• Democrat
• Help from Bryan
• “New Freedom”
• William Howard Taft
• Republican incumbent
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Progressive “Bull Moose” party
• “New Nationalism”
• We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord!”
• Called Taft a “fathead” with the brain of a “guinea pig”

Roosevelt’s New Nationalism vs. Wilson’s New Freedom
• Consolidation of trusts and labor unions
• women’s suffrage
• social welfare
• Minimum wage laws
• Social insurance
• Precursor to the New
Deal
• small enterprise
• Entrepreneurship
• Free functioning of unregulated and unmonopolized markets
• Competition was key
• Enforcement of antitrust laws

Candidate Party Electoral
Votes
States
Carried
Popular
Vote
Percentage
Woodrow
Wilson
Democrat 435 40 6,296,284 41.8
Theodore
Roosevelt
William
Howard
Taft
Progressive
Republican
Eugene
Debs
Socialist
88
8
0
6
2
0
4,122,721
3,486,242
27.4
23.2
901,551 6

• 2 nd Democratic president since 1861
• Born in Virginia
• A Jeffersonian Democrat
• Mass democracy, as long as they were informed
• Great speaker and believed in strong leadership
• Intelligent, but sometimes looked down upon those who were less so
• didn’t relate well to the public
• Idealism and sense of moral righteousness made him incredibly stubborn in negotiating.

• Attacked "the triple wall of
privilege": the tariff, the banks, and the trusts
• helped pass the
Underwood Tariff
Bill (reduced tariffs)
• 16th Amendment: graduated income tax

• Problem: Banking reserves were located in New
York and a handful of other large cities and could not be mobilized in times of financial stress into areas that needed money.
• Federal Reserve Act
• Federal Reserve Board: appointed by the president
• oversaw a nationwide system of 12 regional Federal
Reserve banks
• issued paper money (Federal Reserve Notes)
• money in circulation could be increased as needed for the requirements of business

• Federal Trade
Commission Act of 1914
• oversees industries engaged in interstate commerce
• eliminate monopolies
• Clayton Anti-Trust Act of
1914
• strengthened Sherman
Antitrust Act
• exempted labor and agricultural organizations from anti-trust prosecution
• legalized strikes and peaceful picketing

• Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916: made loans available to farmers at low rates of interest
• Workingmen's Compensation
Act of 1916: gave assistance to federal civil-service employees during periods of disability
• child labor restricted on products shipped between states
• Wilson nominated for the Supreme
Court reformer Louis D. Brandeis, the first Jew to be a Supreme Court justice.

• Anti-imperialist
• Jones Act (1916): granted the Philippines territorial status and promised independence as soon as a stable government could be established
• Haiti (1915) sent Marines to protect
American lives and property
• 1916: signed a treaty with Haiti providing for U.S. supervision of finances and the police.
• 1917: purchased the Virgin Islands from
Denmark

• Mexican revolution (1913) The president was murdered and replaced by General Victoriano Huerta. Because of the chaos in Mexico, millions of Spanish-speaking immigrants came to America.
• President Wilson initially refused to intervene. But after a small party of American sailors was accidentally captured by the
Mexicans, Wilson ordered the navy to seize the Mexican port of
Vera Cruz.
• Argentina, Brazil, and Chile intervened and pressured Huerta to step down.
• Venustiano Carranza became the president of Mexico.
• Francisco Villa, rival to President Carranza, attempted to provoke a war between Mexico and the U.S by killing
Americans.
• Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing to break up Villa's influence.
• The invading American army was withdrawn from Mexico in
1917 as the threat of war with Germany loomed.

• Central Powers: Germany, Austria-
Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria
• Allies consisted of France, Britain,
Russia, Japan, and Italy.
• Wilson issued a neutrality proclamation

• American industry prospered off trade with the Allies
• Germany and the Central Powers protested American trading with the
Allies
• Germany was free to trade with the
U.S., but Britain prevented this trade by controlling the Atlantic Ocean.
• Unrestricted submarine warfare began

• Progressives nominated
Theodore Roosevelt, but he refused to run.
• Republicans: Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Hughes
• condemned the Democratic tariff, assaults on the trusts, and Wilson's dealings with Mexico and Germany
• Democrats: Woodrow Wilson
• anti-war campaign
• “He kept us out of war.”
• Wilson re-elected