In the next part I will go
from the end of the Progressive era to the Great Depression.
William Howard Taft
(1909-1913)
The current poll has Taft
dead center 23rd out of 46. He’s actually dropped a little in the
last decade but that’s more due to recent events then his actual Presidency. I
imagine Taft would be happy to know that he was thought of as ‘average’
considering that during his Presidency, a job he never wanted but his wife
forced him into, he was miserable and always being under the comparison of his
mentor TR.
Taft was condemned almost
from the moment he took office for essentially not being Theodore Roosevelt. The
fact that his administration was at times more progressive then his
predecessor never seemed to enter in to it. His administration was, if
anything, more anti-trust than his, breaking up such monopolies as Standard Oil
and American Tobacco. He backed the passage of the 16th Amendment
which created a federal income tax. He was just as big on conservation as
Roosevelt was. He just wasn’t Roosevelt and Roosevelt hadn’t really wanted to
retire either.
Taft then had to endure a
humiliating primary campaign in which TR beat him in nine of ten primaries they
competed in, including his home state of Ohio. But he felt that he had to do it
because if he didn’t Roosevelt would permanently change the direction of the
GOP and that was anathema to him. That the man he considered his dearest friend
in life was the one doing so was painful enough, that in the general election
the voters chose to vote in greater numbers for TR than him was even more so.
Things got little better
after he left the White House as the Progressives never forgave him and he
never truly healed his breach with TR. But eventually he realized his dream
when Harding appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
He once said during his
time on the bench he didn’t even remember he was President. That’s sad because
he deserves to be remembered for being a good man and a decent President.
My Assessment: Right Where
he belongs.
Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)
Wilson has been taken a hit
for a while. Decades ago, he was considered one of the greatest Presidents in
history. By 1981, he had dropped to near great. The most recent poll ranks him
at 15th, which is just barely above average and below Madison and
John Adams.
Overtime our opinion of
Wilson has changed immensely. We have learned of his segregationist attitudes
which were more severe than most Americans at the time. He was also austere and
rigid from the time he sought the office, and those flaws became increasingly
more obvious as he increasingly bungled every aspect of the handling of the war
in Europe. His policy of neutrality earned him the rath of progressives like TR
and Bob LaFollette; his professor like attitude with the Fourteen Points earned
him the disdain of world leaders, his increased insistence on handling the U.S
delegation at Paris helped wreck the peace and by the time he came to back to
America, he absolutely would not negotiate with Republicans which doomed any
remote chance the League of Nations. On top of that, he suffered a stroke in
1919 and essentially let his wife run the government and did nothing to
entertain a successor.
All of this has justifiably
done much to damage his legacy. Which is a great shame because his first term
was one of the most progressive to that point. He managed to pass tariff,
industrial, and banking reform. The seventeenth and eighteenth amendments became
part of the Constitution in his first term and the nineteenth amendment,
granting female suffrage, was passed by the end of his second. You can argue
about his deserving the Nobel Peace Prize he won in 1919 but the fact remains
he was, after TR, the first President to realize that America had to pay a part
on the world stage. It was a noble message and exhaustion with the war –
combined with his bungling of it – was responsible for America becoming
isolationist for the next two decades and helped lead to the conditions that
led to Hitler’s rise.
I think we have blamed
Wilson too much for his views and failure. Yes, he had the attitude of a savior
and a messiah but his views were the right ones and he did accomplish many
things. He deserves to be in the top ten of the Presidents at the very least.
My Assessment: He Wasn’t
Perfect, But He Wasn’t Average
Warren G. Harding
(1921-1923)
Some of the Presidents once
regarded as failures have seen their reputations improve over time. We saw as
much with Grant. Harding, however, remains considered a failure as well he
should.
I give credit to Harding
for at least making some very qualified cabinet appointments. He named Charles
Evans Hughes Secretary of State, Herbert Hoover Secretary of Commerce and
Andrew Mellon Secretary of the Treasury. He also put Taft on the Supreme Court.
He also named Harry Dougherty Attorney General and Albert Fall Secretary of the
Interior and opposed joining the League of Nations. His Presidency had no real
achievements in it, aside from the campaign slogan “Return to Normalcy.” Normal
was not something you could call his administration, which was one of the most
corrupt in history. Harding knew how bad his friends were but he didn’t do
anything about it. He also had many extramarital affairs, including one so
concerned the RNC that they sent his younger lover on a trip to the far east
before the election.
The 1922 elections were a
disaster for the GOP; they lost 77 seats in the House and seven in the Senate.
There would also be two vacancies filled that gave the Democrats two more
seats. Harding might have lost reelection in 1924, but he beat the rap. He suffered
a stroke in August of 1923 and died which was great for the party – and as we
shall see, horrible for America.
Harding will always be one
of the worst Presidents due more to corruption and ineptitude rather than
policy. The revisionists may do their best to redeem him but it’s never going
to convince historians and I can’t agree more.
My Assessment: Still Among the Very Worst.
Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
Calvin Coolidge was the
last of his breed. He is the most famous President because of how little he
said. He spent his entire Presidency – really his whole life in politics –
saying nothing to anybody. Somehow during his Presidency he was immensely popular
and he is loved by conservatives to this. Perhaps that’s because of one of the
few things is quoted for: “The business of America is business” which is the
center of conservative philosophy.
To be clear while President
he did everything he could to keep that motto alive. He did reduce the national
debt and he also lowered taxes. He also vetoed laws that would have helped
debt-ridden farmers, who were not enjoying the Roaring Twenties. His pro-business
policies encouraged the stock market speculation to boom in the 1920s. And than
in 1928 when he could have run for reelection he famously said: “I do not
choose to run” but never explained why. Maybe he saw the writing on the wall,
considering less than seven months after he left office the good times ended
for everybody.
The conservatives would
love to call Coolidge one of the greatest Presidents and he has managed to
maintain a position among the average ones no doubt because of it. Over the
last decade, however, he has dropped back to where he was ranked before and deserves
to be, among the below average. He has never gotten the same reputation of
either his predecessor or his successor, though he bears far more
responsibility for the Great Depression than Hoover ever did. The only reason I
wouldn’t rank him lower is because there isn’t much lower to go.
My Assessment: Below Average Isn’t Bad
Enough for Him
Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)
Let’s get this out of the
way. Herbet Hoover did not cause the Depression; he just had his hand on the
tiller when it happened. The blame is almost exclusively on the previous two
administrations. He may share some blame because he was Secretary of Commerce
at the time, but not all of it. What he should be held accountable for is that
he spent two full years basically not doing nearly enough to get the country
back on track.
And the thing is, Hoover
was by far the most qualified man to do that. He had been head of European
relief in the aftermath of World War I and because of his abilities millions of
Europeans were saved from starvation and ruin. He should have been more than
able to apply the same philosophies to America, and he certainly had the
Republican majorities to do so. It’s likely the Democrats would have gone along
with it to save the country, at least until November 1930. But during that
period, and indeed beyond it, Hoover didn’t do nearly enough to help. And when
he ran for reelection even though many of FDR’s policies were not initially far
removed from his, he berated that they would destroy the country and ‘that
grass would grow in the streets of New York.” He was a millstone around the
GOP’s neck for the next twenty years and it wasn’t until Truman became
President that he finally got redemption of a sort.
Hoover has been ranked
among the average Presidents overtime which is still far too high. He has
dropped to the below average rankings and its hard to argue that’s the wrong
call. Unlike some of the people lower down on this list, he tried to solve the
crisis he’d been handed. But he was just as inept as many at trying to fix what
other people had broken.
My Ranking: History Has Him Right
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