I can predict with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be another world war if the nations of the world do not concert the method by which to prevent it.
Woodrow Wilson, 1919
b.1856 d.1924
Few men in American politics have risen from obscurity as quickly as Thomas Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States. In 1909 he was the president at small, struggling College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). A few years later he was President of the United States and the best hope for world peace.
Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia in 1856 - the son of a Presbyterian minister and staunch secessionist. Despite several bouts of ill-health he graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1879, earned a law degree from the University of Virgina Law School, and a PhD from John Hopkins University in 1886.
In 1909 the Democratic Party plucked Wilson from his university post and got him elected Governor of New Jersey. His skills quickly made him a candidate to lead the party into the 1912 elections. With the Republicans split between William Howard Taft and Teddy Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Party, Wilson was easily elected President. With his election he became our first and only American President to hold a PhD.
Wilson used his formidable political skills to pass a legislative agenda in his first term that is almost forgotten because World War I dominates the history of the era. Getting Tariff Reform, the graduated income tax, child labor laws, the 8-hour workday, and creation of the Federal Reserve passed through both houses of congress would have been an admirable legacy in its own right, but the war dominates his legacy as President.
Ironically, Wilson narrowly won re-election with the slogan, "He kept us out of war." But shortly after the 1916 election he entered the US into World War I. And while isolationist sentiment dominated the country, Wilson magically brought public opinion along with him - due in no small part to his use of the Four Minute Men. America's entrance into the war turned the tide against Germany. Within months the Germans agreed to an armistice based upon Wilson's famous 14 Points
At the end of the war he travelled through Europe - becoming the first American President to leave the country while in office1. He drew huge cheering crowds and was regarded as the world's best hope for peace. Though not entirely receptive to his plans for Germany or the Ottoman Empire (see the King-Crane Commission), his European allies did agree to his plans for a League of Nations - the predecessor to the United Nations.
Upon his return to the States, Wilson found a Republican-controlled Senate opposed to the treaty he'd worked so hard to achieve. He physically wore himself out trying to gather public support. He served the remainder of his Presidency as a near invalid and died in 1924.
1 As pointed out by Telcomac99, and despite what my source says, in November, 1906, Theodore Roosevelt visited the Panama Canal - so Wilson could not have been the first President to leave the country while in office.
http://www.worldwar1.com/biocwil.htm
http://www.americanpresident.org/KoTrain/Courses/WW/WW_In_Brief.htm