DECEMBER 28 — 1856 Happy Birthday Woodrow Wilson; INVENTIONS/PATENTS: 1879 Edison and Swan’s Electric Light
DECEMBER 28
1856 Happy birthday Woodrow The Phrasemaker Wilson, #28. He was actually born around midnight, so some sources list that he was born on the 29th. Whatever. Woodrow went by the name Tommy up until he was 25. His father was a pastor for the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Tommy Wilson couldn’t read until he was 11 years old, perhaps either due to dyslexia or bad eyesight. Notwithstanding, he excelled academically, attending Princeton, then called the University of New Jersey, studied law at the University of Virginia and received his doctorate from John Hopkins University. In fact, Tommy Wilson is the only president to have a PhD. He taught at Princeton and was elected most popular professors six years in a row, then became the principal of the college. He married Ellen Louise Axson in 1885. The two would have three daughters before Ellen died which I’ll get to in a minute. Woodrow Wilson’s road to the White House was short. As a progressive reformer, he went after machine politics and party bosses, becoming elected as governor of New Jersey in 1910. He served for two years before the Democratic party nominated him to run for President, and at this time the Republican party was completely divided. William Taft faced his former political ally Theodore Roosevelt and the Bull Moose party. Wilson ran on a campaigned called the New Freedom, which advocated individualism and states’ rights.
At 56 years old, Wilson easily won the presidential election with 435 electoral votes and 42% popular. Teddy Roosevelt came in second with 27% popular, and Taft came in a miserable third place with 8%.
The election results were broadcasted on the radio for the first time, courtesy of WWJ, Detroit. And progressive the Presbyterian professor Wilson was. In his first term alone, maneuvered three major pieces of legislation through Congress. The Federal Reserve Act, passed in 1913, basically outlined the same regulations to this day for the nation’s banks, credit and money supply . The Federal Trade Act gave us the FTC, or Federal Trade Commission, which prohibits and investigates business practices.
The Underwood-Simmons Act which called for tariff reduction, included Income Tax is in the measure. Other progressives accomplishments include child labor laws, limited railroad workers to an eight-hour day, as well as the Federal Farm Loan Act which is exactly that. The Professor Wilson also appointed Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish person to be confirmed to the Supreme Court. However, Wilson dragged his feet in the beginning on Woman’s Suffrage, or women’s right to vote. But he’d revisit that later. Meanwhile, at the White House, President Wilson designated Mother’s Day to be on the second Sunday of May. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, Ellen passed away and died of a kidney disease.
He would later marry his second wife, Edith Galt. He was the first president to give press conferences on a regular basis, spent the rest of his time constantly meeting Congress for 18 months to get his legislation passed. He was the first president to attend the World Series. He kept us out of war, his campaign slogan read for his second term. In 1916, the Phrasemaker Wilson barely beat Charles Evens Hughes in one of the closest presidential elections ever. And he was determined to keep the Unite States neutral during Europe’s War.
But in April 1917, German submarines began attacking American merchant ships. Then the Germans sunk the Lusitania, killing 120 Americans, all bets were off. The attack on the Lusitania was devastating. The Zimmerman Telegram, which was a request for alliance from Germany to Mexico, didn’t help things. On April 2,1917, he asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany, in order to keep the world safe for democracy. “A general association of nations…affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.”, said The Professor Wilson. The Great War raged on. Here in America, the Espionage and Sedition Acts were in full force. Wilson put his Presbytarian faith in John J. Pershing and other top generals to lead the war. Around 375,000 African Americans fought for America. A flock of sheep was raised on the White House lawn so their wool could raise money for the Red Cross. President Wilson was the first to travel outside the United States. He was in Europe for six long months.
America’s assistance in WWI, as we all know, tipped the power to the Allies, and on November 11, 1918. The ceasefire was annouth at 11:00 p.m. on, the eleventh day of the eleventh month for all you numerologists out there, Germany signed the armistice. Two months later, 1919, President Wilson sat with the heads of the British, French and Italian governments at the Paris Peace Conference. “Dare we reject it and break the heart of the world?” asked The Professor Wilson, presenting the Versailles Treaty to the Senate. This included the Covenant of the League of Nations. The Europeans loved Woodrow’s 14 Points, which he initially outlined to Congress a year prior, create an organization that would resolve international disputes and keeping The Great War the war to end all wars. But the Americans didn’t like the idea. Republicans feared that the Versailles Treaty would limit America’s sovereignty and lead to another war.
So the Phrasemaker Wilson set out on a campaign across the country, despite his doctor’s recommendation not to do so. Henry Ford fronted the bill for President Wilson’s advertising the concept of the League of Nations to 1400 newspapers across the country. Once, Woodrow gave a speech in San Diego on an electric microphone. It would be another twenty five years until the United Nations would set up shop in New York for what would become the United Nations. As of now, the only thing this campaign for the president led to was a stroke, which nearly killed him.
This stroke left Woodrow Wilson partially paralyzed and nearly blind, and wife Edith worked behind the scenes, running a Petticoat Government until his health rebounded. Edith was called several names by political opponents during this time, such as the Iron Queen, the President’s, and the Regent. Wilson’s proposal for the Versailles Treaty was defeated by seven votes in the Republican Senate. The end of President Wilson’s second term saw the beginning of the Prohibition, which banned booze everywhere in America, as well as the passing of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote, Except the women who could now vote for the first time, as well as the men, voted for Republican Warren WG Harding. Wilson would live after his stroke for another four years.
Ironically, Harding would only live another three after fatally suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. Wilson spent his retirement attempting some law practice and taking rides around Washington DC with Edith in their fancy Rolls Royce, On February 3, 1924, Thomas Woodrow Wilson whispered Edith’s name for the very last time, and passed on, at the age of 67. Life does not consist in thinking, it consists in acting. “The only thing that has ever distinguished America among the nations is that she has shown that all men are entitled to the benefits of the law.” (New York, Dec. 14, 1906.) Happy birthday Woodrow!
1869 – William Semple patents chewing gum. He was a dentist and his gum wasn’t sweet it was chalk and powdered licorice root with a hint of yummy charcoal. 1877 – John Steven
1879 here are the headlines from the New York Times: Edison’s Electric Light.
On my October 22 ep I explain how the Wizard of Menlo Park, Thomas Edison, improved upon an invention that honestly should be credited to a British inventor named Joseph Swan. Edison had just invented the phonograph two years earlier and was clearly on a roll. A filament roll, that is. The reporter for the Times had firsthand look at this glass ball that had a thread of carbonized paper clamed between two platinum hooks.
From there two wires ran outwardly through a small glass tube inside a larger tube leading out of the glass ball. Inside the tube the platinum wires came in contact with two copper wires connected to the conductors of an electric generator. Edison The reporter called it brilliant incandescence in his article.
Thomas Edison, born in 1847 in Ohio, did not have much school training as a youngster. At an early age, his hearing went bad, which motivated him to invent things, such as improvements to the telegraph, which led to the phonograph in 1877. Later he would invent the movie camera and projector. It’s been said that although Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity, some historians dispute that, though it’s difficult to argue that since Franklin survived the lightning bolt blast, he obviously understood the concept of grounding like no one else in his day.
Again, while Edison wasn’t the inventor of electricity, he certainly made it practical by having the first ever power plant installed in New York to light up almost the entire city. In just a few days, on New Year’s Eve, he would display it to the public 1879. As far as Joseph Swan was concerned, though his lightbulb came first, it was not practical and was not ready for household applications. So in order to avoid a lawsuit on the demonstrating, Edison reached out to Swan and formed a company called Edessa, which allowed Edison to sell his lights in America while San kept his rights in Britain.
Edison applied for more than 400 patents throughout his career, and eventually became too big for Menlo Park and moved his lab to West Orange New Jersey, where he would continue to work on inventions until he died in1931, age 84.