---
title: Woodrow Wilson
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/quotes/woodrow-wilson/
description: 24 verified quotes from Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, with sources.
section: FRAME
---

![Illustration: a pre-1914 imperial intelligence-dossier collage of colonial telegraph logs, sepia field photography and empire maps.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-pre1914.jpg)

[Quotes](https://propagandaarchive.org/quotes/) · United States

# Woodrow Wilson

![Woodrow Wilson in 1919](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/wilson-administration/woodrow-wilson.jpg)

[Photo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Woodrow_Wilson,_Harris_&_Ewing_bw_photo_portrait,_1919.jpg): Harris & Ewing, Public domain (Library of Congress: no known restrictions on publication)

President of the United States · United States

On the regime page: [Wilson administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/wilson-administration/#woodrow-wilson)

24 quotes, oldest first. [Filter with other speakers](https://propagandaarchive.org/quotes/#speaker=woodrow-wilson).

1. **Content note:** Describes Southern and Eastern European immigrants as "the lowest class". The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “Throughout the century men of the sturdy stocks of the north of Europe had made up the main strain of foreign blood which was every year added to the vital working force of the country, or else men of the Latin-Gallic stocks of France and northern Italy; but now there came multitudes of men of the lowest class from the south of Italy and men of the meaner sort out of Hungary and Poland, men out of the ranks where there was neither skill nor energy nor any initiative of quick intelligence; and they came in numbers which increased from year to year, as if the countries of the south of Europe were disburdening themselves of the more sordid and hapless elements of their population, the men whose standards of life and of work were such as American workmen had never dreamed of hitherto.” — 1902 · Book — Passage in Wilson's multi-volume history, written when he was a Princeton professor, on the change in the origin of immigrants to the United States in the 1880s and 1890s. — Woodrow Wilson, A History of the American People, vol. 5, "Reunion and Nationalization" (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1902), ch. 3, "The End of a Century," pp. 211-212 [Source](https://archive.org/details/historyofamerica05wils)
2. **Content note:** Describes Reconstruction governments as sustained by "ignorant negroes". The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest of adventurers: governments whose incredible debts were incurred that thieves might be enriched, whose increasing loans and taxes went to no public use but into the pockets of party managers and corrupt contractors.” — 1902 · Book — Passage in Wilson's history of the post-Civil War South describing the Reconstruction state governments and the white response to them. — Woodrow Wilson, A History of the American People, vol. 5, "Reunion and Nationalization" (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1902), ch. 1, "Reconstruction," p. 57 [Source](https://archive.org/details/historyofamerica05wils)
3. **Content note:** Describes the Ku Klux Klan as protecting the South from the "ugliest hazards of a time of revolution". The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “Here was a very tempting and dangerous instrument of power for days of disorder and social upheaval, when law seemed set aside by the very government itself, and outsiders, adventurers, were in the seats of authority, the poor negroes, and white men without honor, their only partisans. Year by year the organization spread, from county to county, from State to State. Every country-side wished to have its own Ku Klux, founded in secrecy and mystery like the mother "Den" at Pulaski, until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, an "Invisible Empire of the South," bound together in loose organization to protect the southern country from some of the ugliest hazards of a time of revolution.” — 1902 · Book — Passage describing the origin and spread of the first Ku Klux Klan in the Reconstruction South. — Woodrow Wilson, A History of the American People, vol. 5, "Reunion and Nationalization" (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1902), ch. 1, "Reconstruction," p. 59 [Source](https://archive.org/details/historyofamerica05wils)
4. > “We must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another.” — August 19, 1914 · Statement · Washington, D.C. — Statement to the American people issued two and a half weeks after the First World War began in Europe, addressed to a country with large immigrant populations from several of the belligerent states. — "A Message to the American People" (appeal for neutrality), 19 August 1914, as reproduced by the Miller Center, University of Virginia [Source](https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/august-19-1914-message-neutrality)
5. **Content note:** Defends racial segregation of federal workers as "a benefit". The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “It will take one hundred years to eradicate this prejudice, and we must deal with it as practical men. Segregation is not humiliating but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen. If your organization goes out and tells the colored people of the country that it is a humiliation, they will so regard it, but if you do not tell them so, and regard it rather as a benefit, they will regard it the same. The only harm that will come will be if you cause them to think it is a humiliation.” — November 12, 1914 · Private-remark · Washington, D.C., White House Verified (secondary source) — Second White House meeting between Wilson and Trotter's delegation on the racial segregation of federal employees in the Treasury, Post Office and other departments. Trotter published the account, and The Crisis printed it with the delegation's statement; Wilson ended the meeting after Trotter replied. — Wilson's reply to a delegation of the National Independent Equal Rights League led by William Monroe Trotter, White House, 12 November 1914, as printed in "Mr. Trotter and Mr. Wilson," The Crisis, vol. 9, no. 3 (January 1915), p. 119 [Source](https://archive.org/details/crisis910dubo)
6. > “You deal in the raw material of opinion and, if my convictions have any validity, opinion ultimately governs the world.” — April 20, 1915 · Speech · New York City, annual luncheon of the Associated Press — Speech to the news agency's members during the first year of the European war, about three weeks before the sinking of the Lusitania. Carried over from the regime page's "In their words" list. — Address to the Associated Press, New York, 20 April 1915, in The New Democracy: Presidential Messages, Addresses, and Other Papers (1913-1917), ed. Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1926), p. 301 [Source](https://archive.org/details/newdemocracy0001wood)
7. > “There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.” — May 10, 1915 · Speech · Philadelphia, Convention Hall — Spoken to an audience of newly naturalized citizens three days after a German submarine sank the Lusitania, with 128 Americans among the dead. The address did not mention the sinking. — Address to newly naturalized citizens, Convention Hall, Philadelphia, 10 May 1915, as printed by the American Presidency Project [Source](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-naturalized-citizens-convention-hall-philadelphia)
8. > “You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American, and the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.” — May 10, 1915 · Speech · Philadelphia, Convention Hall — Same speech to new citizens, in the passage on divided loyalties among Americans of European birth during the war. — Address to newly naturalized citizens, Convention Hall, Philadelphia, 10 May 1915, as printed by the American Presidency Project [Source](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-naturalized-citizens-convention-hall-philadelphia)
9. **Content note:** Describes some foreign-born citizens as poisoning the nation with disloyalty. The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue.” — December 7, 1915 · Speech · Washington, D.C., United States Capitol — Passage in the annual message on alleged sabotage and propaganda by some naturalized citizens during the European war. Wilson goes on in the same passage to say that their number is not great and urges Congress to pass new laws. — Third Annual Message to Congress, 7 December 1915, as printed by the American Presidency Project (published in the Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States and the Congressional Record) [Source](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/third-annual-message-19)
10. **Content note:** Calls for disloyal persons to be "crushed out". The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “I urge you to enact such laws at the earliest possible moment and feel that in doing so I am urging you to do nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out. They are not many, but they are infinitely malignant, and the hand of our power should close over them at once.” — December 7, 1915 · Speech · Washington, D.C., United States Capitol — Same passage of the annual message, calling on Congress to legislate against disloyal acts. Federal sedition and espionage legislation followed in 1917 and 1918. — Third Annual Message to Congress, 7 December 1915, as printed by the American Presidency Project [Source](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/third-annual-message-19)
11. > “They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace without victory. It is not pleasant to say this. I beg that I may be permitted to put my own interpretation upon it and that it may be understood that no other interpretation was in my thought. I am seeking only to face realities and to face them without soft concealments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand.” — January 22, 1917 · Speech · Washington, D.C., United States Senate — Address delivered to the Senate while the United States was still neutral, setting out the terms on which Wilson said a lasting peace could be built. Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare nine days later. — Address to the Senate, 22 January 1917, as printed by the World War I Document Archive (Brigham Young University) [Source](https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/President_Wilson's_Address_to_the_Senate,_January_22,_1917)
12. > ““Once lead this people into war,” he said, “and they’ll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street.”” — April 1, 1917 · Private-remark · Washington, D.C., White House Verified (secondary source) — Cobb's account of a late-night conversation with Wilson at the White House on the evening before the war message, in which Wilson spoke about the effects of a declaration of war at home. — Wilson's words to Frank I. Cobb, editor of the New York World, as recalled in Cobb's memorandum printed in John L. Heaton, Cobb of "The World": A Leader in Liberalism (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1924), pp. 269-270 [Source](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.167608)
13. > “The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion.” — April 2, 1917 · Speech · Washington, D.C., joint session of Congress — War message delivered to Congress after Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. Congress declared war on Germany four days later. Carried over from the regime page's "In their words" list. — Address to a joint session of Congress asking for a declaration of war, 2 April 1917, in War and Peace: Presidential Messages, Addresses, and Public Papers (1917-1924), ed. Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1927), p. 14 [Source](https://archive.org/details/warpeacepresiden0001wood)
14. **Content note:** Promises "stern repression" of disloyalty. The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.” — April 2, 1917 · Speech · Washington, D.C., joint session of Congress — Passage of the war message about Americans of German birth or descent, after Wilson says most of them are loyal. The Espionage Act followed on 15 June 1917. — Address to a joint session of Congress asking for a declaration of war, 2 April 1917, as printed by the American Presidency Project [Source](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-joint-session-congress-requesting-declaration-war-against-germany)
15. > “But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea.” — April 2, 1917 · Speech · Washington, D.C., joint session of Congress — Wilson explains to Congress why the armed neutrality he had proposed on 26 February 1917 could not answer unrestricted German submarine warfare, before asking for a declaration of war. — Address to a joint session of Congress, 2 April 1917, in Why We Are At War: Messages to the Congress, January to April 1917 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917) [Source](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6870)
16. > “Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic Governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people.” — April 2, 1917 · Speech · Washington, D.C., joint session of Congress — From the passage of the war message setting out the aims of the war, shortly before Wilson asks Congress to recognise a state of war with Germany. — Address to a joint session of Congress, 2 April 1917, in Why We Are At War: Messages to the Congress, January to April 1917 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917) [Source](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6870)
17. **Content note:** Advocates press censorship. The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “authority to exercise censorship over the press to the extent that that censorship is embodied in the recent action of the House of Representatives is absolutely necessary to the public safety.” — May 22, 1917 · Letter · Washington, D.C. — Letter to the congressman who chaired the House Judiciary Committee, written after the House had voted against a press-censorship provision in the Espionage bill. Carried over from the regime page's "In their words" list. — Letter to Representative Edwin Y. Webb on censorship of the press, 22 May 1917, in War and Peace: Presidential Messages, Addresses, and Public Papers (1917-1924), ed. Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1927), p. 45 [Source](https://archive.org/details/warpeacepresiden0001wood)
18. **Content note:** Calls critics of the war "agents and dupes" of the German government. The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “The sinister intrigue is being no less actively conducted in this country than in Russia and in every country in Europe to which the agents and dupes of the Imperial German Government can get access. That government has many spokesmen here, in places high and low. They have learned discretion. They keep within the law. It is opinion they utter now, not sedition. They proclaim the liberal purposes of their masters: declare this a foreign war which can touch America with no danger to either her lands or her institutions; set England at the centre of the stage and talk of her ambition to assert economic dominion throughout the world; appeal to our ancient tradition of isolation in the politics of the nations; and seek to undermine the government with false professions of loyalty to its principles.” — June 14, 1917 · Speech · Washington, D.C., Sylvan Theater, Washington Monument grounds — Speech on Flag Day two months after the declaration of war, during the debate over the Espionage Act. In the same address Wilson says he is speaking of the German government and its supporters rather than of Americans generally. — Flag Day Address, 14 June 1917, as printed by the American Presidency Project [Source](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-flag-day)
19. **Content note:** Warns opponents of the war effort. The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for the salvation of the nations.” — June 14, 1917 · Speech · Washington, D.C., Sylvan Theater, Washington Monument grounds — Closing passage of the Flag Day Address, delivered in a heavy rainstorm. — Flag Day Address, 14 June 1917, as printed by the American Presidency Project [Source](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-flag-day)
20. > “Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.” — January 8, 1918 · Speech · Washington, D.C., joint session of Congress — First of the fourteen points in Wilson's statement of war aims, delivered to Congress ten months after the declaration of war. The speech followed the Bolshevik publication of the Allies' secret treaties. — Address to a joint session of Congress ("Fourteen Points"), 8 January 1918, point I, as printed by the Avalon Project (Yale Law School) [Source](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp)
21. > “A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.” — January 8, 1918 · Speech · Washington, D.C., joint session of Congress — Last of the fourteen points; it is the basis of the League of Nations later written into the Covenant at the Paris Peace Conference. — Address to a joint session of Congress ("Fourteen Points"), 8 January 1918, point XIV, as printed by the Avalon Project (Yale Law School) [Source](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp)
22. > “Force, force to the utmost, force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant force which shall make right the law of the world and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust.” — April 6, 1918 · Speech · Baltimore, Fifth Regiment Armory — War-bond speech on the first anniversary of the American declaration of war, delivered a few weeks after the German spring offensive began on the Western Front. — Speech opening the Third Liberty Loan campaign, Fifth Regiment Armory, Baltimore, 6 April 1918, as printed by the American Presidency Project [Source](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/speech-the-opening-the-third-liberty-loan-campaign-delivered-the-fifth-regiment-armory)
23. > “I can predict with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be another world war if the nations of the world do not concert the method by which to prevent it.” — September 8, 1919 · Speech · Omaha, Nebraska, Auditorium — Speech during Wilson's national tour in support of the Treaty of Versailles and the League Covenant, in the Senate ratification fight. It is often attributed to the Pueblo speech of 25 September 1919; Wilson said it at Omaha. — Address at the Auditorium, Omaha, Nebraska, 8 September 1919, in War and Peace: Presidential Messages, Addresses, and Public Papers (1917-1924), ed. Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd, vol. 2 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1927), pp. 36-37 [Source](https://archive.org/details/warpeacepresiden0002wood)
24. **Content note:** Calls an imprisoned antiwar socialist leader a traitor and refuses a pardon. The words are shown as they were said or written. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) — > “I will never consent to the pardon of this man. I know that in certain quarters of the country there is a popular demand for the pardon of Debs, but it shall never be accomplished with my consent. Were I to consent to it, I should never be able to look into the faces of the mothers of this country who sent their boys to the other side. While the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man, Debs, stood behind the lines, sniping, attacking, and denouncing them. Before the war he had a perfect right to exercise his freedom of speech and to express his own opinion, but once the Congress of the United States declared war, silence on his part would have been the proper course to pursue. I know there will be a great deal of denunciation of me for refusing this pardon. They will say I am cold blooded and indifferent, but it will make no impression on me. This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration.” — 1921 · Private-remark · Washington, D.C., White House Verified (secondary source) — Tumulty's account of Wilson's response to the Justice Department recommendation on Eugene V. Debs, imprisoned since 1919 under the Espionage Act for an antiwar speech. Wilson left office on 4 March 1921; President Harding commuted Debs's sentence in December 1921. — Wilson's remarks on the Debs pardon recommendation, as recorded in Joseph P. Tumulty, Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1921), p. 505 [Source](https://archive.org/details/woodrowwilsonasi00tumurich)

## Often attributed, not verified

These words circulate under Woodrow Wilson’s name but could not be traced to a source. They are listed so readers can check them, not as Woodrow Wilson’s words.

- > “It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” — Unverifiable Usually said to come from: Said by Wilson after a White House screening of The Birth of a Nation, February 1915 (reported by Thomas Dixon and in later accounts). — No contemporaneous record found. On 30 April 1915 Wilson's secretary Joseph Tumulty wrote, in a letter printed in The Crisis (June 1915, pp. 88-89), that "the President was entirely unaware of the character of the play before it was presented and has at no time expressed his approbation of it. Its exhibition at the White House was a courtesy extended to an old acquaintance." Wilson's own words in the film's intertitles come from his History of the American People, not from a statement about the film.
- > “I can predict with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be another world war if the nations of the world do not concert the method by which to prevent it.” — Misattributed Usually said to come from: Pueblo, Colorado, 25 September 1919. — The sentence is Wilson's, but it was spoken at Omaha on 8 September 1919 (Baker and Dodd, War and Peace vol. 2, pp. 36-37); it is listed above under the Omaha date. The Pueblo speech of 25 September 1919 has no sentence in these words.
- > “Open covenants of peace must be arrived at, after which there will surely be no private international action or rulings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.” — Unverifiable Usually said to come from: Wilson, Fourteen Points address, 8 January 1918, point I (as submitted in a lead citing Wikisource) — Neither the Avalon Project text nor the Wikisource text of the 8 January 1918 address contains this wording. Point I reads "Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view", already in this file as wilson-1918-01-08-fourteen-points-open-covenants.