Democrat · 1913–1921
Woodrow Wilson
The income tax and the Federal Reserve; segregation in federal offices; wartime speech laws; the League fight.
Woodrow Wilson was president 1913–1921. The party color on the chart is Democrat. Early presidents are not forced into today’s party names. The placement note is: The income tax and the Federal Reserve; segregation in federal offices; wartime speech laws; the League fight.
The dot is economics -16 and authority +58. That is left of center on economics. The other axis sits toward authority. Color and place are allowed to disagree. Theodore Roosevelt sits left of Grover Cleveland on economics.
What was said, and what the administration did, are filed separately. Said: New freedom from monopoly, then a war to make the world safe for democracy, then a League. Done: The income tax, the Fed, and wartime speech prosecutions. The Senate rejected the League. Federal offices were segregated. Where those two sentences pull apart, the dot follows the governing record, not the slogan.
The nearest other presidents on these two numbers are Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909, -8 / +40) and Andrew Johnson (1865–1869, +6 / +44). A small distance can join people who would have disliked each other. The chart is a compression, not a claim that they were alike.
Presidents are not placed with the Voteview roll-call score used for the current Congress. Two axes cannot carry a war, a court, a tariff, and a civil-rights record as separate facts.