Woodrow Wilson or Franklin D. Roosevelt: which president was worse for free speech?
In August, FIRE posted a viral X thread, arguing that Woodrow Wilson may be America’s worst-ever president for free speech. Despite the growing recognition of Wilson’s censorship, there was a professor who wrote a recent book on FDR’s free speech record, arguing that FDR was worse.
Representing the Wilson side in our discussion is Christopher Cox, author of the new book, “Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn.” Cox is a former member of the House of Representatives, where he served for 17 years, including as chair of the Homeland Security Committee. He is currently a senior scholar in residence at the University of California, Irvine.
Representing the FDR side is professor David T. Beito, a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama. He is the author of a number of books, his latest being “The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR's Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance.”
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
03:41 Wilson’s free speech record
15:13 Was FDR’s record worse than Wilson’s?
24:01 Japanese internment
29:35 Wilson at the end of his presidency
37:42 FDR and Hugo Black
42:31 The Smith Act
45:42 Did Wilson regret his actions?
50:31 The suffragists
56:19 Did FDR regret his actions?
01:02:04 Outro
Show notes:
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