APUSH Chapter 32 Essay Questions

 

1.    Compare and contrast Roosevelt’s New Nationalism and Wilson’s New Freedom programs. Which seems to you to be the more realistic response to industrialization? Why?

 

2.    Compare the issues and candidates in the presidential elections of 1912 and 1916. Account for Wilson’s victory in each case.

 

3.    Summarize the action taken by Wilson’s administration and Congress on behalf of farmers and working people. Would you call Wilson a president of the “common people” in America? Why?

 

4.    It has been said that despite his intentions and idealistic pronouncements, “Woodrow Wilson’s Caribbean policy was a mere extension of Roosevelt’s ~big stick.’ “ Do you agree? Why or why not?

 

5.    Assess America’s neutrality at the outset of World War I. Consider both

a.           Wilson’s policies in regard to England and Germany. b. the sentiments of the American public. Were we “neutral in thought as well as deed”? Explain.

 

6.    Had you lived at the time, do you think you would have liked Woodrow Wilson? Why or why not? Consider both his personal qualities and his presidential leadership and policies.

 

7.   Assess Wilson’s conduct of foreign policy from 1914 to 1917. Do you think he could have pursued a different course that would have kept the United States out of the war? Should he have? Why or why not?

 

8.   Comment on the observation that Wilson’s support for the flood of social-welfare legislation in

1916 was “hypocritical and self-serving.”

 

9.  Wilson once remarked that he was “going to teach the South American republics to elect good men.” Do you think this a proper function for the president of the United States? Why or why not? Use American relations with Mexico to illustrate your view.