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Fourteen Points
Delivered in a Joint Session of Congress, January 8, 1918
Reprinted from the World War I Document Archive, available
online at http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1918/14points.html
101
Woodrow Wilson: Visionary of Peace or Progressive Politician?
Woodrow Wilson is best known for Princeton University and later became the
his leadership of the United States during president of Princeton. His success as a
World War I and for his dramatic statements university president launched him on his
about the need for world peace. However, political career.
he spent most of his political career Wilson was elected as the
campaigning for reforms (policy changes) Democratic governor of New Jersey in 1910.
in the United States. Wilson was known as a During his two years in office he pushed
progressive politician, which meant that he through progressive laws that gave voters a
favored reforms in American government stronger voice in electing state officials,
that were designed to limit the power of regulated public utilities like electricity and
corporations, provide basic protections for gas, reorganized the school system,
consumers, and give common people a established workmen’s compensation
bigger role in their government. He was (payment for on-the-job injuries), and
part of a generation of politicians who had fought corruption in state politics. His
great influence on American government strengths as governor brought him national
from 1900 to 1920. acclaim and earned him the Democratic
Wilson was born in 1856, the son presidential nomination in 1912.
of a highly educated Presbyterian minister. Wilson campaigned on a platform
He was a slow learner, not learning to read of reforms he called “The New Freedom.”
until he was almost twelve years old, but He beat incumbent president William
he developed quickly in high school and Howard Taft, former president Theodore
became a popular public speaker and Roosevelt, and Socialist candidate Eugene
athlete while attending Princeton University V. Debs to become president in 1912.
in New Jersey. Wilson later studied law and Within just a few years the major elements
history, earning a doctorate degree in of Wilson’s “New Freedom” plan were
history from Johns Hopkins University in passed into law: child labor restrictions;
1885. Wilson became a professor at laws establishing better working conditions
Her: Russia.
VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement
of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest coop-
Unhampered and eration of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an
unembarrassed: Unrestricted
unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent
and free from shame; again,
determination of her own political development and national policy
Wilson uses a pair of like
terms to make his point, and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations
which is that the Russian under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome,
people should be allowed to assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself
choose their government desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the
without outside interference. months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their com-
Institutions: Forms of prehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and
government. of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
Acid test: A test that reveals VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and
the true quality. restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she
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Link, Arthur Stanley. Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace. Arling-
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Articles
Wilson, Woodrow. “Speech on the Fourteen Points,” 65th Cong., 2d sess.,
Congressional Record (8 January 1918), pp. 680–81.
Web sites
World War I Document Archive.[Online] http://www.lib.byu.edu/
~rdh/wwi/1918/14points.html (accessed February 2001).