In our previous episode, we covered Woodrow Wilson's early life, his successful academic career, and his rise as a progressive leader, and ultimately as president of the United States.

We covered his considerable successes during his first years as president, how he instituted major progressive reforms that rivaled, or some would say even exceeded those of his 1912

opponent, Theodore Roosevelt. But Wilson's challenges were just beginning. He would forever be known

for his ambitious plans at the global stage. How those ambitions played out is the subject

of this episode of This American President. There is an apocryphal story that just before his first inauguration, Woodrow Wilson told a friend

that, quote, it would be the irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign

affairs. Ironic, because Wilson had focused for most of his adult life and throughout his campaign

for the presidency on domestic issues. If true, the story is

all the more interesting, since Wilson is known mostly for his foreign policy goals and aspirations.

Wilson has rightfully been called an idealist when it comes to foreign policy, but he didn't

necessarily start that way. He took a bit of a journey on the way to becoming

what if America's most idealistic foreign policy presidents of all time. During the Spanish

American War, when Wilson was still an academic, he supported American imperialism,

calling it, quote, the natural and wholesome impulse which comes with a consciousness of matured strength.

It was during this time that he sounded a lot like one of the war's advocates and participants,

Theodore Roosevelt. Wilson also believed in the expansion of America's commercial interests,

that the United States' growing strength had given it a greater role in both

the geopolitical and geopolitical and geoeconomic spheres that it had, quote, pushed us out into the

trade of the world. In time, Wilson came to believe that American ideals were to guide U.S.

foreign policy above all else. In a speech in 1911, Wilson said,

quote, America is not a mere body of traitors. It is a body of freedom. Our greatness is built upon

our freedom. Is moral, not material. Principles lied back of our actions. America would be inconceivable without them.

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