When I was growing up, Woodrow Wilson was a great progressive hero. As a founder of the League of Nations and a champion of global democracy, he was a model of enlightened statesmanship. As president of the United States, he introduced a host of sweeping reforms, including an income tax and women's right to vote. He was the most forward-looking leader before the New Deal came along.
But now, they want to chisel his name off buildings.
Woodrow Wilson was also a deep-dyed racist. Even in the context of the times, his views on race were noxious. As president of Princeton, he excluded blacks. As president of the United States, he resegregated the federal civil service and removed black employees from positions of authority. He told a group of black professionals, "Segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen."
The ugly side of Mr. Wilson's legacy has been pretty much airbrushed out of history. Now it has sparked a crisis at Princeton, where students are demanding that his name be expunged from its renowned school of public policy. Lots of folks agree with them – including The New York Times. Others aren't so sure. As one student told the Times, "If the criteria for naming a building for someone was that they'd be perfect, we shouldn't name buildings."
In an age of sharply shifting values, these dilemmas are only going to get worse. What should we do about Sir John A. Macdonald? Most of us know him as the foremost father of Confederation – a nation-builder with a rather endearing drinking problem. But today, he has been dramatically recast as a corrupt, colonizing white supremacist – a man who hated immigrants, warned against the mongrelization of the white race, and oversaw a vast ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples. I know some people who despise him, and they're not wrong.
Sir John A. believed that the Chinese should be excluded from Canada so that "the Aryan character of the future of British America" would be preserved. Even in the context of the times, this view was extreme. Worse, he oversaw the establishment of the reserve system, restricted the free movement of aboriginal populations, and starved them into submission in order to clear the plains for European settlement. (A recent book on this subject, by James Daschuk, awkwardly won the Sir John A. Macdonald prize for non-fiction.)
In other words, forget all that pious nonsense about peace, order and good government. Canada achieved peace and order by destroying and displacing indigenous cultures, just as the Americans did – though with less bloodshed.
It's tempting to dismiss these disputes as so much political correctness run amok. But they're much more than that. They are important contests over how we should define the past, and who gets to own it. Not even our favourite feminists can escape unscathed. Take Nellie McClung. As the foremost women's suffragist of her time, she fought for women's right to vote, for married women's property rights, for mothers' allowances and for factory safety legislation.
She was also – like many progressives of the time – an ardent eugenicist. She believed that checking the birth rate of the "unfit" – meaning the mentally ill and the feeble-minded – was an important social reform, and she argued for laws that would permit forcible sterilization. She won. Such laws remained on the books in parts of Canada until the 1970s.
Eugenics made racism respectable and scientific, on the left as well as on the right. Woodrow Wilson was a eugenicist. So was Tommy Douglas, the father of medicare, who wrote a master's thesis called "The Problems of the Subnormal Family." (He later changed his mind.)
When plans were unveiled in 2010 to erect a statue to Nellie McClung's memory, not everyone was thrilled. "Human rights is a concept that's applicable in all times and all places," argued human-rights lawyer David Matas.
It's easy to be guilty of the sin of presentism – condemning our forefathers and mothers for attitudes and practices that are repellent now. But I also don't think we should let them off the hook. They were utterly convinced they were on the right side of history. They sincerely believed they were acting in the name of social progress and the greater good. Perhaps the moral for progressives is to be more humble and less smug.
One day we, too, will be on the wrong side of presentism. What repellent beliefs and practices will our great-great-grandchildren condemn us for? Will it be our gas-guzzling SUVs? Personally, I think it's more likely to be our grotesque inhumanity to animals.
As for Sir John A., we can't chisel his name off everything. It would take too long. But maybe we can look for other folks to glorify – with an asterisk, of course.