Faculty Views Wilson Ideas At Centennial

Woodrow Wilson is now fashionable again in the foreign policy field, William L. Langer '15, Coolidge Professor of History, told a centennial celebration audience last night. The American people have taken 40 years to learn lessons that Wilson learned in a few, Langer said.

He spoke in Sanders Theatre on "Woodrow Wilson Revisited: An Evening of Reevaluation," along with Alvin H. Hansen, Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy, Paul M. Herzog, Associate Dean of the faculty of Public Administration, and Charles Howard McIlwain, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government.

We have finally realized, like Wilson, that effective action required knowledge, power, idealism, and willingness to accept responsibilities in a world role, Langer added.

United nations action in Korea is the most striking current example of the natural outflow of ideas explored by Wilson years ago, he continued. The former President found that to carry weight in international affairs you needed power as well as ideals and good intentions.

Hansen discussing his role in economics, called Wilson a true Jeffersonian Democrat, who adjusted Jeffersonian practices to Jeffersonian ideals in a changed society. He saw that a democracy could not exist in the sphere of uncontrolled capitalism, and swung the Democratic Party away from States Rights in a successful effort to save the system, Hansen added.

Wilson laid the groundwork for future economic reforms, he stated. "Collective bargaining, equalizing of funds, graduated income tax, and the Federal Reserve System, were elements of Wilson's economic policy which show that he went far beyond the merely negative policy of trying to resume competition," the leading Keynesian economist concluded.

Talking of his role as president, Herzog said that despite several failings, Wilson accomplished both his major personal objectives: one, his assertion of executive leadership; and two, the submission of issues to the people for their judgment.

McIlwain, an intimate friend of Wilson in his early Princeton days, reminisced extemporaneously