| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Woodrow Wilson and the Lost World of the Oratorical Statesman. By Robert Alexander Kraig. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004. xii, 244 pp. $45.00, ISBN 1-58544-275-5.)
Although biographers have always noted the emphasis that Woodrow Wilson put on oratory and debate as central to democratic leadership, Robert Alexander Kraig emphasizes that these ideas were not merely intuitive but were part of a broad, cohesive theory of statesmanship that Wilson developed throughout his career. Wilson believed, Kraig argues, that the oratorical statesman—a leader who combines a philosophical understanding of the objects of government with an exceptional ability to inspire and lead his fellow citizens through rhetoric—is the highest type of democratic leader. At first, drawing on British models, Wilson thought that such leadership must be exercised within a legislative context, but he gradually came to believe that an oratorical statesman could enunciate and mold national and even international opinion and action.	1
When he became president in 1912, Wilson's theory encouraged him to push presidential leadership into new areas. Previous presidents had assumed that the separation of powers required them to keep their hands off the legislative process. Even Theodore Roosevelt, who took issues to the stump to encourage the public to put pressure on Congress, spoke only about broad principles, carefully refraining from addressing the specifics of matters before the legislature. Wilson, in directly and publicly addressing Congress about legislative issues, carried what Jeffrey Tulis called The Rhetorical Presidency (1987) to new levels, making the president the leader in the development of all aspects of government policy.	. . .

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