澳门六合彩

In celebration of our 50th anniversary, 澳门六合彩 convened distinguished experts and prominent Center alumni聽to explore the relevance of President Woodrow Wilson鈥檚 international and domestic record for today.

To what extent is the 28th president鈥檚 vision for world order still applicable in the face of the profound shifts that the international system is undergoing at present? Are there lessons to be learned from his domestic policy accomplishments and failures?

Selected Quotes

Panel 1

Baroness Catherine Ashton

鈥淸Democracy] is not a process that is a straight line. It is a process that is very complicated and difficult, and it鈥檚 the cherry on the icing on the cake when you finally get to the point of an election. And so one of the challenges, I think, for those of us promoting democracy as the best way of organizing society to the benefit of people, is to get people to understand what it means.鈥�

"The purpose of elections is to throw governments out. That's what it's for. It鈥檚 not necessarily to vote them in, because often, when you vote, you鈥檙e not quite sure what you鈥檙e going to get.鈥�

Mitchell Reiss

"There鈥檚 a crisis of confidence in the world order more than there really is any fundamental change to the world order鈥� It reminds me of what financial analysts say about company stock valuations: there may be some underlying volatility, but the fundamentals are sound.鈥澛�"We, collectively, as a nation, led by people here in Washington, decided to make an accommodation to certain countries during the Cold War. And then, after the Cold War, we decided to make an accommodation to China because we bet on their integration鈥� Here we are, 10, 15 years further on, and the bet doesn't look like it's going to pay off for us."聽

Trygve Throntveit

"Wilson was not an advocate of self-determination. He was not an advocate of everyone in the world getting their own polity. He was an advocate of deliberative structures of governance."聽

"I think the United States is an extended argument against the principle of ethnic self-determination, and that was the history and the culture that informed Wilson's thinking. He was a civic nationalist."聽

Panel 2

Kathryn Lavelle

鈥淚 think what we forget about the women鈥檚 suffrage movement were the contradictions in the movement... I think we forget how violent, the violent elements that were present in the women鈥檚 movement at the time, and the schisms in the movement.鈥澛犅犫�淭hose contradictions and the kinds of problems that came about in the Wilson administration are the kinds of problems we see up until the last week in American politics.鈥澛�

David Wessel

鈥淪ome of the tensions in society that resulted in [Wilson鈥檚 economic] legislation are with us today. So, the whole incredible, long debate over creating the Federal Reserve鈥� reappears in 2008 and is with us today. That notion of how important it is that society control credit, that the democracy has some constraints on the bankers, is very much a current issue.鈥澛犅犫�淚f Wilson was a prejudiced person, which he was, I think particularly across the color line, [he was] not so, I think, among whites. Not only did he appoint Brandeis, the first Jew to the U.S. Supreme Court, he appointed the first Jew to the New Jersey Supreme Court. As president of Princeton University, he appointed the first Jew to the faculty. At least on this side of the color line, [Wilson] was not so bad on that.鈥澛犅犅�

Eric Yellin

鈥淚f we look at a list of accomplishments for Wilson and Wilson鈥檚 administration, they get more interesting when we think of them as also failures in certain ways聽鈥撀爓ays that present problems and tensions and conflicts for us today鈥For example,] the Versailles Treaty is an affirmation of white global leadership. It ends the war, but it certainly doesn鈥檛 end imperialism or colonialism.鈥澛犫�淲hat brings Wilson around to women鈥檚 suffrage is reassurance from his daughters that women will still be women even as they are voters, which gives you a sense of the limits of Wilson鈥檚 imagination for what it means to be a civic participant. He was honestly worried, I think, that politics was a dirty game and that women would be dirty... He gets convinced that women should be part of the electorate, but not on terms that would be recognized today as progressive.鈥澛�

Devin Fergus

鈥淲hen the [Wilson] administration goes about segregating federal employees, federal offices, they said one of the main reasons is, 鈥榃e don鈥檛 want black supervisors over white clerks.鈥� So there is a great anxiety, particularly in this window of time when you have economic concentration and a sense of class precarity, you have to address that in many ways by rolling back the access of other populations鈥� By targeting and addressing public employment of African Americans, you鈥檙e targeting and addressing their primary vehicle for upward mobility.鈥澛犫�淚t鈥檚 not simply what happens during the Wilson administration, but what also happens at the state level, what also happens in subsequent administrations, whether it鈥檚 Harding, whether it鈥檚 Coolidge. Coolidge sees that you don鈥檛 have to address African Americans, so what does he do? He takes a silent role on the Dyer Bill [on] anti-lynching because he sees that you don鈥檛 have to appeal to or address this population.鈥�

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Agenda1:45- 3:00PM聽 Will the World Order Wilson Envisioned Survive?聽The Right Honourable Baroness Catherine Ashton, Global Europe Program, Wilson Center聽Mitchell Reiss, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation聽Trygve Throntveit, University of Minnesota聽Moderator: Robert S. Litwak, Wilson Center3:15-4:30PM聽 聽Revisiting Wilson's Domestic Record聽Kathryn Lavelle, Case Western Reserve University聽聽David Wessel, The Brookings Institution聽Eric Yellin, University of Richmond聽Devin Fergus, University of Missouri聽Moderator: John Milton Cooper, University of Wisconsin