Woodrow Wilson And Dementia
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States. He was also the president of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. Wilson was elected the president in 1912, and he is the only US president until today to have a PhD. |
On January 8, 1918, Wilson presented the Peace Program to the Congress for approval. This program was formulated by the best foreign policy experts of the country and it contained 14 points. The first five were related to general principles like renouncing secret treaties, allowing freedom of the seas, removing worldwide trade barriers, reducing arms and international arbitration for solving all disputes between countries.
Points 6 to 13 focused on specific problems like claims made by Russia, France and Italy. This part also brought up the issues related to the control of the Dardanelles and call for independence may by people living in regions controlled by the Central Powers.
However, all the important countries that took part in the First World War objected to one point or the other in the Peace Program. However, Wilson was insistent that the Program should be the basis for signing of the Armistice.
Then, in 1918, Wilson attended the Paris Peace Conference and lent his support to the Versailles Treaty. However, the Senate, which was now controlled by the Republicans, did not favor a League of Nations, and therefore, did not ratify the Versailles Treaty. This led Wilson to launch a campaign across the country to gather support for the Treaty.
He spent a lot of time traveling across the country and making speeches. This ultimately took its toll, and while making a speech in Colorado, Wilson collapsed. On October 2, 1919, Woodrow Wilson had a major stroke and this left him completely incapacitated. He suffered from paralysis of the left side and went blind in the left eye. He was confined to a wheelchair for a few months, and thereafter he started using a cane but needed assistance even with that.
Therefore, it was not dementia that Woodrow Wilson suffered from. Rather it was a stroke that left him completely incapacitated. Whether the stroke caused dementia is not known as the state of his health was kept a secret.
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