WOODROW WILSON AND THE PROGRESSIVE ERA

The latest volume in Harper's New American Nation Series is a perceptive historian's well-versed and readable analysis of a period he pictures as the basis of the New Deal philosophy. By discussing earlier trends- socialism and the Rooseveltian tirades against big business, Link firmly grounds his premise for setting the beginnings of progressivism in the Wilson era, and then moves with ease into his two main tasks- first to show the solving of the dilemma between the new freedom and nationalism and secondly, how the progressives were drawn into international relations and the European War. As Wilson, not a true crusader but relatively free and with few political and economic ties, came into the picture, there followed a lowered tariff, reorganized currency systems, a strengthening of anti-trust acts. But it was in foreign relations where the more missionary aspect of his policies operated- so much so that intervention in the Mexican Revolution earned enemies before the vaclation in neutrality towards Europe had run its course and ended in Wilson's wholehearted internationalism.