Woodrow Wilson Speech Analysis

Woodrow Willson, in his 1912 campaign speeches, there was a common theme placed in all of them. The advancement and liberal changes needed for the growth of a new society. There were three parts describing the changes required that can be taken from the underlining of speech. Economic, political, and government were all needed to change so that the society on which it rests with can grow. In Woodrow Wilson’s first speech The Old Order Changeth Wilson mentions that society has come to a new age and that requires for new ways to adapt to this. “We are in the presence of a new organization of society. Our life has broken away from the past. Th life of America is not the life that it was twenty years ago; it is not the life that it was ten years

Our laws are still meant for business done by individuals; they have not been satisfactorily adjusted to business done by great combinations, and we have got to just them.” (Wilson 22) Not only does that line apply that the United States of America should evolve it also shows how Wilson himself thinks. Woodrow Wilson is a product of the Victorian age of thinking that took place in the United States. However Wilson demonstrates his application of this thinking with the understanding that the times no longer wears that suit. Progress and change to the economic base and structure is an understanding that Wilson had while preparing for his speeches for his campaign tours. One such change, to the economic structure, was to change the laws surrounding it. Wilson mentions the change of law to help the economic change in his The Tariff-“Protection,” or Special Privilege speech. Wilson explains that a big problem for the American business, or for the common consumer, lays with the tariffs. “The tariff question is not the

Wilson understood that, being the product of the Victorian age, Victorian style thinking could not be applied anymore with the modern era that they found themselves in. politics itself had been clinging onto its old ways and Wilson believed it was time for a new type of being should take place. Wilson constantly mentions that the common man should put itself more into government positions. As Wilson mentioned in his Life Comes From The Soil speech “We have had the wrong jury; we have had the wrong group,-no, I will not say the wrong group, but too small a group,-in control of the policies of the United States. The average man has not been consulted, and his heart had begun to sink for fear he never would be consulted again.” (Wilson 40) Wilson believes that because the common man has been put into the corner, that american politics have taken a wrong turn away from the common man. By adding more of the “common man” into a position to have his voice heard, more likely is it to improve the situations of everyone. During these times Wilson experienced, or more appropriately saw, that equality was being threatened because American politics were focusing on more select groups. “To-day, when our government has so far passed into the hands of special interests; to-day, when the doctrine is simplicity avowed that only select classes have the equipment necessary for carrying on