Woodrow Wilson (1856 – 1924) was the 28th President of the United States. He was born in Virginia on December 28, 1856 to parents who identified with the Confederacy and owned slaves. As president, he established official segregation in most federal government offices. He secured passage of the Federal Reserve Act in late 1913, a complex business-government partnership that to this day dominates the financial world. Narrowly re-elected in 1916 around the slogan "He kept us out of war", Wilson's second term was dominated by American entry into World War I. He suppressed anti-war movements with the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, which seriously limited free speech in America. Mere criticism of the Wilson administration and its war policy became grounds for arrest and imprisonment. Wilson set up the first propaganda office, the United States Committee on Public Information, which filled the country with patriotic anti-German appeals and conducted various forms of censorship. Under Wilson, the U.S. maintained troops in Latin American countries like Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, and used them to select presidents and brutally suppress resistance movements. For his peace-making efforts, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize. In 1919, he went to Paris to promote the formation of a League of Nations, with special attention on creating new nations out of defunct empires.
