Comparison Of President Woodrow Wilson And Franklin D. Roosevelt

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The decisions made by our leaders during the world wars greatly affected our history and the worlds. President Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt made great strides to protect our national security and our future. Both had similarities and differences in their strategy to combat the issue of war. Both made the United States more involved in world affairs today. The issue both Presidents faced was whether or not to enter any of the world wars. Both president Woodrow Wilson and Roosevelt felt remaining neutral and not involving themselves in European affairs was the best solution. Wilson himself stated that “the United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name …” for entering the war was not something he or the American people wanted (Doc 1a). Wilson wasn’t very strict on his neutrality though. As WWI continued exports to Germany decreased as they greatly increased for Great Britain (Doc 1b). The U.S. still favored Great Britain and its allies and were not very neutral in trade. It raises the question if Germany was wrong to sink merchant ships. In response to the destruction of passenger and merchant ships Wilson wrote notes to the German leadership and made strong protests against their actions (Doc 2). Germany promised to stop the attacks, but later broke their promise leading to the U.S. entering the war. As stated before Roosevelt also supported neutrality. His actions before the war (WWII) were more drastic then Wilson’s. He put trade embargo’s on Japan fearing their increasing aggressiveness toward other nations and their possible threat to the United States and stationed the U.S. fleet at Hawaii (Doc 7). Roosevelt believed the best way to help European nations was to act as a beacon of liberty and restr... ... middle of paper ... ...work with other nations to keep the peace. It is still in effect today. The UN was not based on or limited to a peace treaty but instead was separate. That helped Roosevelt get support for U.S. membership. All in all these two presidents had similar goals. They just achieved them in different ways. Wilson and Roosevelt were idealists who wanted the U.S. to be more active in world affairs. Both were willing to take drastic action to protect the United States. Roosevelt relocated Japanese Americans and enforced trade embargos on European and Asian nations. Wilson cracked down on Germany’s actions during WWI and the breaking of that agreement lead to Wilson declaring war on Germany. These actions have changed our history forever and the worlds. If it weren’t for US entering either war, Germany may have won and the world we know today would be way different.

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