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→President: 1913-21
==President: 1913-21==
==President: 1913-21==
Taking advantage of a deep split in the GOP, the Democrats took control of the House in 1910 and elected the Northern segregationist Woodrow Wilson as president in 1912 and 1916. In his first year in office, Wilson permitted his Treasury and the Post Office to begin efforts to [[segregate]] the federal workforce, particularly in the Columbia District. It was often carried out surreptitiously. Yet Wilson condoned it and tried to duck its implications in a manner we would describe today as slimy. Wilson ordered [[Jim Crow]] segregation in all federal government facilities in Washington DC, wiping out 50 years of social progress that African-Americans made under Republicans. No longer could blacks and whites work together in government offices, eat in the same cafeterias, our use the same bathrooms. The Wilson administration went a step further. Through the Treasury Department's Office of the Architect, the bureau charged with construction and maintenance of federal buildings, federal buildings throughout the nation were ordered to furnish segregated bathrooms, even in Northern states were practices as such were virtually unknown.<ref>''American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow'', Jerrold M. Packard, St. Martin's Press, 2003, pp. 124-125</ref>
===First term===
===First term===
In his first year in office, Wilson permitted his Treasury and the Post Office to begin efforts to [[segregate]] the federal workforce, particularly in the Columbia District. It was often carried out surreptitiously. Yet Wilson condoned it and tried to duck its implications in a manner we would describe today as slimy. He also curtailed minority appointments to executive, diplomatic, and judicial positions.
In his first year in office, Wilson permitted his Treasury and the Post Office to begin efforts to [[segregate]] the federal workforce, particularly in the Columbia District. It was often carried out surreptitiously. Yet Wilson condoned it and tried to duck its implications in a manner we would describe today as slimy. He also curtailed minority appointments to executive, diplomatic, and judicial positions.
====Domestic policy====
====Domestic policy====
[[File:Ww-prog.jpg|thumb|580px|left]]
[[File:Ww-prog.jpg|thumb|580px|left]]
Wilson successfully led Congress to a series of [[Progressive]] laws, including a reduced tariff, stronger antitrust laws, the [[Federal Reserve System]], hours-and-pay benefits for railroad workers, and outlawing of child labor, raising wages for adults. Furthermore, constitutional amendments for prohibition and woman suffrage were passed in his second term. In effect, Wilson laid to rest the issues of tariffs, money and antitrust that had dominated politics for 40 years.
In 1915 the epic [[Hollywood]] film, ''Birth of a Nation'' was released with its portrayal of black men, many played by white actors in blackface, as unintelligent and sexually aggressive towards white women, and the portrayal of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK) as an heroic force.<ref>[http://www.moviejustice.com/vault/index.php?p=getitem&db_id=4&item_id=27 MJ Movie Reviews – Birth of a Nation, The (1915) by Dan DeVore] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090707194449/http://www.moviejustice.com/vault/index.php?p=getitem&db_id=4&item_id=27 |date=July 7, 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://themovingarts.com/revered-and-reviled-d-w-griffiths-the-birth-of-a-nation/|first=Eric M.|last=Armstrong|title=Revered and Reviled: D.W. Griffith's 'The Birth of a Nation'|work=The Moving Arts Film Journal|date=February 26, 2010|accessdate=|deadurl=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100529224316/http://themovingarts.com/revered-and-reviled-d-w-griffiths-the-birth-of-a-nation/|archivedate=|df=mdy-all}}</ref> It was the first American motion picture to be screened inside the [[White House]], viewed there by President [[Woodrow Wilson]], members of his cabinet, and their families.<ref>{{harvnb|Stokes|2007|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=fGJFpiTjbKwC&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=%22operators+wearing+full+evening+dress+utilized%22&source=bl&ots=AOFjf60Rc_&sig=GJ-f9FVH8MfOtgnzIJLQV_3l-DU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_m5hUMf9JI-whAfz6oCQAg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22operators%20wearing%20full%20evening%20dress%20utilized%22&f=false 111]}}</ref> In a letter to the White House press secretary the author of ''The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan'' which the film is based,<ref name="Franklin pages 417-434">Franklin, John Hope "''The Birth of a Nation'': Propaganda as History" pages 417–434 from ''The Massachusetts Review'' Volume 20, No. 3, Autumn 1979 page 421.</ref> wrote: {{cquote|"The real purpose of my film was to revolutionize Northern sentiments by a presentation of history that would transform every man in the audience into a good Democrat...Every man who comes out of the theater is a Southern partisan for life!"<ref name="Franklin_430">Franklin, John Hope "''The Birth of a Nation'': Propaganda as History" pages 417–434 from ''The Massachusetts Review'' Volume 20, No. 3, Autumn 1979 page 430.</ref>}}
In a letter to President Wilson, Thomas Dixon Jr., who authored the book and screenplay, boasted:
{{cquote|"This play is transforming the entire population of the North and the West into sympathetic Southern voters. There will never be an issue of your segregation policy".<ref name="Franklin_430"/>}}
Dixon was alluding to the fact that Wilson upon becoming president in 1913 had imposed segregation on federal workplaces in Washington D.C. while reducing the number of black employees through demotion or dismissal.<ref>Yellin, Eric S. (2013). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Mx-NiOJ3n-AC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127 Racism in the Nation's Service: Government Workers and the Color Line in Woodrow Wilson's America] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180207065000/https://books.google.com/books?id=Mx-NiOJ3n-AC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127 |date=February 7, 2018 }}''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. p. 127. {{ISBN|9781469607207}}</ref>
=====Immigration=====
=====Immigration=====
Wilson twice vetoed the Burnett Immigration Restriction Bill, which required a literacy test for immigrants and would have sharply reduced the number of poor immigrants from Poland, Italy and other parts of eastern and southern Europe. As a moderate progressive, Wilson believed southern and eastern European immigrants, though often poor and illiterate, to be capable of assimilation into a homogeneous middle class with other whites. He considered so-called hyphenated immigrants unacceptable because they acted as groups rather than blending into the common population. Indeed, he denounced the hyphenates. Wilson sought to achieve American strength through unity, blending together the best characteristics of every nationality to create the ideal citizenry, opposing [[Henry Cabot Lodge]]'s nativist view that American civilization must be based on an Anglo-Saxon foundation. Immigration from Europe practically ended when the war began, so the issue was postponed ino the 1920s, when a quota system was set up to keep the country's ethnic balance unchanged.<ref>Hans Vought, . Division and Reunion: Woodrow Wilson, Immigration, and the Myth of American Unity. Journal of American Ethnic History; 1994 13(3): 24-50.</ref>
Wilson twice vetoed the Burnett Immigration Restriction Bill, which required a literacy test for immigrants and would have sharply reduced the number of poor immigrants from Poland, Italy and other parts of eastern and southern Europe. As a moderate progressive, Wilson believed southern and eastern European immigrants, though often poor and illiterate, to be capable of assimilation into a homogeneous middle class with other whites. He considered so-called hyphenated immigrants unacceptable because they acted as groups rather than blending into the common population. Indeed, he denounced the hyphenates. Wilson sought to achieve American strength through unity, blending together the best characteristics of every nationality to create the ideal citizenry, opposing [[Henry Cabot Lodge]]'s nativist view that American civilization must be based on an Anglo-Saxon foundation. Immigration from Europe practically ended when the war began, so the issue was postponed ino the 1920s, when a quota system was set up to keep the country's ethnic balance unchanged.<ref>Hans Vought, . Division and Reunion: Woodrow Wilson, Immigration, and the Myth of American Unity. Journal of American Ethnic History; 1994 13(3): 24-50.</ref>