Bitter Rivals Henry Cabot Lodge and Woodrow Wilson

ive values that melded the Senator as a man "whose nature and upbringing disposed him to be out of step with his times". His fiery personality that emerged during Lodge's tenure as a Senator was most likely a direct result of this conservative environment during his formative years. He would not budge from political positions he believed to be morally just, even though those terms manifested themselves in strictly conservative legislation in foreign policy (Widenor 44-47).
             Lodge had another concern over his career as a politician besides being a fierce advocate for conservatism in US foreign policy. While Lodge had to fight the "silver-spooned boy" stereotype on the Senate floor and on the campaign trail, he felt immense responsibility to the citizens of Massachusetts who elected him to his seat (Widenor 49). The rapid increase of industrialization within the United States, as well as increased immigration "brought new values and interests" to New England, made Lodge's job of representing Massachusetts in the Senate a much tougher task (Widenor 45). The threat of the increasing difficulty in pleasing all of Massachusetts' many peoples forced Lodge to be steadfast in his own. If his constituents ever had complaints with Lodge, he never wanted them to be able to truthfully say he did not stand up for what he believed was right. Lodge's background and uncertainty of future social standing lit a fire within him and led to his fiery temperament over key Senate issues that was Lodge's trademark for many years.
             The different backgrounds from which Wilson and Lodge arose to attain political power led them both to support American entry into World War I but pushed them away from one another in terms of foreign policy after the war's conclusion. Wilson's devout Calvinist beliefs sparked within the President a sense of Americanism – he believed that God would be ...

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Bitter Rivals Henry Cabot Lodge and Woodrow Wilson. (2000, January 01). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 23:45, September 25, 2026, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/41137.html