“WOODROW WILSON IN PEACE AND WAR”

Presented by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Reception at 3:30 pm ● Lecture at 4:00 pm

McCord Auditorium ● 306 Dallas Hall

3225 University● Southern Methodist University

Just after he was elected president in November 1912, Woodrow Wilson remarked to a friend on the Princeton University faculty, “It would be an irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign problems; for all my preparation has been in domestic matters.” That comment proved prophetic and neatly encapsulated Wilson’s presidency. Clearly, “foreign problems”—in the form of World War I, American intervention, and his efforts to create a new structure of peace—did come to dominate his time in the White House, especially his second term. Likewise, his “preparation”—by which he meant more his academic studies than his late blooming plunge into politics—served him well in domestic affairs, as he racked up a record of legislative achievements to rival those of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. In all, Wilson’s presidency was one of triumph and tragedy compressed into eight dramatic years that shaped the rest of the 20th century.

John Milton Cooper, Jr., is the E. Gordon Fox Professor Emeritus of American Institutions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of several books on the American presidency, including The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (1983); Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations (2001); and the recently published Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (2009).

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The Stanton Sharp Lectures are sponsored by the Clements Department of History

and are free and open to the public. Seating is not reserved.

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Visitor parking is available in the parking garages at

Ownby and Binkley ($1 per hour) or SMU Blvd. and Airline ($5 per day)

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For more information, call 214-768-2967, or email hist@smu.edu,