موسسه آموزشی فرهنگی نسل نو اندیش

Woodrow Wilson won his first office in 1910 when he was elected governor(فرماندار) of New

Jersey. Two years later he was elected president(رئیس جمهور) in one of the most rapid

political(سیاسی) rises in our history. For a while Wilson had practiced law(قانون) but found it

both boring(خسته کننده) and unprofitable(بی فایده); then he became a political scientist

(دانشمند) and finally president of Princeton University. He did an outstanding(برجسته) job at

Princeton, but when he was asked by the Democratic boss(رئیس) of New Jersey, Jim Smith, to

run for governor, Wilson readily accepted(پذیرفت) because his position(موقعیت) at

Princeton was becoming untenable(غیر قابل اشغال).

Until 1910, Wilson seemed to be a conservative(محافظه کار) Democrat in the Grover

Cleveland tradition. He had denounced(تقبیح کردن) Bryan in 1896 and had voted for the

National Democratic candidate who supported gold. In fact, when the Democratic machine first

pushed Wilson's nomination in 1912, the young New Jersey progressives wanted no part of

him. Wilson later assured(مطمئن کردن) them that he would champion(دفاع کردن از) the

progressive cause, and so they decided to work for his election. It is easy to accuse Wilson of

political expediency(شتاب), but it is entirely(به طور کامل) possible that by 1912 he had

changed his views as had countless(بی شمار) other Americans. While governor of New

Jersey, he carried out his election pledges(ضمانت) by enacting(تصویب کردن) an impressive

list of reforms(اصلاحات).

Wilson secured(محکم کردن) the Democratic nomination on the forty-sixth ballot(رای). In the

general campaign, Wilson emerged(پدیدار شد) as the middle-of-the-road candidate - between

the conservative William H. Taft and the more radical(سیاست مدار افراطی) Theodore

Roosevelt. Wilson called his program the New Freedom, which he said was the restoration

(استقرار مجدد) of free competition as it had existed before the growth of the trusts. In

contrast, Theodore Roosevelt was advocating(طرفداری کردن) a New Nationalism, which

seemed to call for massive(توده) federal intervention(مداخله) in the economic(اقتصاد)

life of the nation. Wilson felt that the trusts should be destroyed, but he made a distinction

(تفاوت) between a trust and legitimately(قانونی) successful big business. Theodore

Roosevelt, on the other hand, accepted the trusts as inevitable(ناچار) but said that the

government should regulate them by establishing a new regulatory agency.