Woodrow Wilson & Presidential Morality w/ Patricia O'Toole

The Road to Now

Benjamin Sawyer

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 628 Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Patricia O'Toole's The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made (Simon & Schuster, 2018) examines the life of a President whose policy was guided by his personal sense of morality. From today's perspective, Woodrow Wilson's time in the White House (1913-1921) seems full of contradictions. He supported a constitutional amendment to ensure women's suffrage, but oversaw the re-segregation of America's civil service. He championed national self-determination for the people of Europe, but readily deployed US soldiers to intervene in Latin America. And he won re-election with the slogan "He Kept Us Out Of War," yet called for America's entry into World War I just a little over a month after his second inauguration. In spite this, O'Toole says that a close examination of Wilson's thought and policy reveals a consistent world view that binds these seemingly contradictory actions together.

Patricia O'Toole is the author of five books, including The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams (Simon & Schuster, 2006), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She previously taught in the School of the Arts at Columbia University was a fellow of the Society of American Historians.

This is a rebroadcast of RTN #93 which originally aired on April 30, 2018. This rebroadcast was edited by Ben Sawyer.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Ben Sawyer and this is The Road to Now.
0:09.9	Friends, the road has taken me back to my annual trip to Long Beach, California, where I visit
0:15.2	family every year. Bob is on the road promoting his new album. If you haven't heard,
0:19.2	The Avert Brother's new album, check it out. He's on a tour.
0:21.6	Follow their tour dates.
0:22.4	You can see him live.
0:39.8	But right now, since we're both on our vacation modes, we are running through some rebroadcast that we've done. And I've got to say, this has been fun. I love going back through the deep cuts. In this episode here, we recorded in April of 2018 with Patricia O'Toole.
0:39.8	It's about Woodrow Wilson. I love going back through the deep cuts. And this episode here, we recorded in April of 2018 with Patricia O'Toole.
0:43.9	It's about Woodrow Wilson and really the question of presidential morality.
0:47.2	And the opening question Bob asks is brilliant.
0:48.9	Do we need a moral president?
0:50.1	And it goes from there.
0:52.9	And we asked this question in 2018.
1:10.9	I still think we're struggling with this question. I think we would say yes, but maybe other things suggest otherwise. Anyway, it's a great conversation, and we're happy to re-air it. Before we go on, I've got to give a shout out to the winners of the Rhodes and our trivia the other night. Because of some bookkeeping errors maybe on my behalf. I don't know.
1:13.5	We had two first place teams, both of which deserved it.
1:18.4	The Eagles, consisting of Team Martin, that's Dale and Kat Martin, and Kristen Jorgensen.
1:23.0	They tied with the country kids, Fig White, along with David and Jackie Kendall.
1:25.3	Great competition that night.
1:44.4	I also got some great leads on some guests coming up from these guys. So not only do we have a great time, those guys are getting some prizes, but also I got filled on some new books that I think might make good guess. Guys will be traveling for a little bit. We've got some new episodes lined up for upcoming weeks. I hope you guys are staying safe. I hope you had a great July 4th weekend.
1:49.3	And please continue to support the show. Patrons, you keep the show going. Godspeed.
1:52.3	We hope you enjoy this conversation with Patricia O'Toole.
1:59.1	Just a quick reminder here that this was recorded in 2018. So any references to the current administration are references to the Donald Trump administration.
	...

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