Hartford Academics Poll: Top 10 Presidents of the United States in the 20th Century
Sister list to this one of British PMs in the 20th Century
- Stuart Symington – Democrat (1961-1973)
- Nelson Rockefeller – Republican (1973-1979)
- Harold Stassen – Republican (1949-1953)
- Albert J. Beveridge – Republican (1913-1921)
- Gary Hart – Democratic (1985-1993)
- Wendell Willkie – Democratic (1941-1945)
- Earl Warren – Republican (1953-1961)
- James M. Cox – Democratic (1921-1929)
- William Jennings Bryan – Democratic (1901-1905)
- James S. Sherman – Republican (1905-1912)
[1] Finest President of the United States in the 20th Century, as agreed upon by the nation’s finest academics. Stuart Symington presided over some of the biggest changes in the nation’s history. Uniquely, the only President to serve more than two term, and for many Americans it wasn’t enough. Symington rarely appears out of the top 5 in any kind of list. It fell to him to guide the nation as the Cold War reached its zenith, and America finally overtook Britain as leader of the West against the Soviets, drawing a line in the sand that neither China nor Moscow could cross. At home, after years of unrest and back and forth, Symington overturned the legacy of segregation and Jim Crow with the ’63 Civil Right Bill, the 24th Amendment that broke voting discrimination, as well as his ‘Greater Union’ policies that overhauled healthcare, public works, market regulation and military funding. The modern United States has much owed to the Mighty Missourian.
[2] Rockefeller. Not merely the name of the 38th President, but a word that has defined the modern Republican Party since his election. New York’s favourite son, Rocky had been a Republican insider for much of his early life, before being propelled to Vice Presidency in the turbulent late 50’s before spending Symington’s Presidency as a Senator for New York. From this position, Rockefeller marshalled the forces of the Eastern Republicans behind the President’s agenda, making earning the irritation of the Conservative Coalition in the Senate. As President, he then ensure the longevity to the best of Symington’s work, reforming healthcare and welfare with national requirements before aid was give, housing programs and overseeing the Abortion Reform Act 1977. In foreign affairs, Rockefeller carried on American primacy in the Cold War: his Vice President would famously be charged to ensure détente with China, setting it off against Moscow; while the President signed the Vancouver Agreement with Prime Ministers Prior (UK), Hayden (Australia) and MacDonald (Canada) of the Commonwealth once more making official cooperation between the two against the Warsaw Pact. Though expected to follow through and match his predecessor’s achievement of a third term in office, tensions within a resurging conservative movement began to push back, and there was talk of a new amendment to prevent Presidential third terms, but before Rockefeller could respond he was struck down by a heart attack. The image of Rocky slumped over his desk, working for the nation to the end, is assured to grant him posterity.
[3] Before there was Rockefeller and Symington, there was Stassen. America of the late 1940s was a very troubled nation, struggling to come to terms with its position in the world post-WW2 and the vast social/economic changes it had undergone as a result. Polarisation was greater than ever, more than merely Republican vs Democrat but farm vs factory; North vs South; Atlantic vs Pacific; black vs white; labour vs business etc. Stassen’s time as President was one largely of moderate conservativism, typical of what would be known as Rockefeller Republicans, though tragedy would intervene to make Stassen the lesser of the two men in History’s eyes. Struggling with the fractious state of the nation and Congress for his first term, Stassen was able to bind a kind of moderate coalition together from his Mid-West basis, but they forced him to compromise on the interventionist foreign policy he had hoped to push, especially in Asia and West Europe. However the famous crux came in 1952 with crises in the West Pacific. The Quasis-War that ensued with the Japanese Empire, the Soviet-Manchu, Wang Jingwei and the Philippines was not Stassen’s fault by any stretch, but as the increased attacks on American civilian and military shipping increased, he increasingly became blamed by the public, culminating in his assassination after winning a narrow victory. Much of what followed in the decade has given Stassen the image of a kind of prophet for many Republicans that followed, a man who had all the solutions to problems to come, he had just come too early and to a Party that wasn’t ready for him yet…
[4] If the 20th Century was going to belong to any country, then it would belong to America. That was the basis of the everything Albert Beveridge did as President, whether dialling up the Progressive Movements hold on the reins of power to an eleven, or taking the nation head first into the First World War.
These policies were as controversial when they were enacted as they are today, Beveridge had no trouble with a second Naval Bill to Sherman’s first, and adding an Army Bill to the Congressional agenda. To many, this put America on collision course for the storm brewing in Europe though initially these extended arms of American power were sent to buttress the fledgling colonies and to support the Constitutionals in the Mexican Revolution before the first shot in Europe was fired. When the Great War did arrive, Beveridge was pro-Entente from the start and encouraged his Party and American business to get behind their war effort, naturally antagonizing the Central Powers who began making deals with Mexican rebels and influenced the German decision of unrestricted submarine warfare.
Despite the President’s confidence never once shaking throughout his tenure, confidence in him would fall into question by the 1916 election. One year into the American struggle, the allied war effort ran into deep trouble as US troops arrived on the Western front in time to take the brunt of the Verdun Offensive. The meat grinder that followed dominated the election, however a divided Democratic Party still meant that Beveridge swept the country. Eventually, the allies managed to cohere in 1917, and drove back on the Western Front, breaking through at Passchendaele and holding the German offensives to a standstill, the President consistently made sure that American troops did their part and got a fair share of the credit, himself crossing the Atlantic on General Wood’s invitation in time to see US Marines reach the Rhine in February 1918.
Victory brought its own trials however, and changes in government in both France and Britain meant Beveridge quickly began to form a rift with his former allies. Likewise at home, Beveridge was facing new enemies. During the War, Congress had been accept (if reluctant) to the need for allowing the Executive a massive increase in power to oversee its conduct, though many protested – one of the main critics by Democrats in 1916 were those similar to Lincoln had faced 50 years before – that the President had become a tyrant. Yet in Peace, Beveridge tried to hold on to much of his powers, particularly as regards the economy. The final years of Beveridge was marked by arguments on all front as now more and more deemed Progressivism and Imperialism had had its day in America.
[5] The last President of the Cold War came to office at a turbulent time. John Connally’s resignation was still raw and details of the financial scandals around him were still trickling out, and the split in the Republican Party went to the marrow. As a result, the former Senator from Colorado had his work cut out for him in uniting the country and getting the wavy economy back on track. Hartenomics became one of the defining words of the 1980s in America, as the President reengineered Keynesian policies of Symington and Rockefeller, boosting the power of labour unions and moving investments away from traditional industry, and towards the up and coming ones of the Microchip Age. By the end of his first tenure, Hart had the beginnings of what became ‘Digital Detroit’ as manufacturing in certain areas of the Rust Belt began to decline in favour of computers and the burgeoning internet to compete with Silicon Valley and Japan, and by the time Hart left office future giants Amazon and eBay would be based out of the city. Under Hart, inflation came under control (though not by enough to keep out of people’s minds) and GDP had an annual growth of 4%.
Foreign Affairs became a mixed bag, though dominated by his one major success: Ending the Cold War, and the collapse of the USSR. The new Soviet leadership were reform minded, and Hart eager to work with them, however, he had to tread carefully and as they faced crisis after crisis Soviet leadership kept pushing it back. ‘Bleeding Hart’, as Republicans derogatorily referred to the President and his attitude to the Russians, began outreach programmes to the Soviets which for a time seemed to work, until for the Central Committee it began to work too well. When Moscow tried to close down the American programmes active in the Soviet Union, the people on the streets reacted badly, as their patience finally ran out with the regime and took to the streets. The unrest soon spread to puppets of the Warsaw Pact in Warsaw, Gdansk, Budapest, Changchun, and Bucharest, and so the divided house couldn’t stand. In America, Hart was lauded for his tact and understanding of the Russian people even by the most hostile Republicans, which made Hart’s failings in Central Asia and the Middle East, and as his time in office wound down, this provided useful cover for the ongoing crisis inside the White House.
It was an open secret in the White House about Hart’s extramarital affairs from the beginning of his Presidency, however during the ’88 campaign, the first rumours began to leak to the press. They managed to be shrugged off as rumours by sore Republicans, however they never quite went away. The Washington Post gained confirmation of the President’s ongoing affair with Donna Rice in Summer 1992, but declined to print the evidence while the President remained in office, his popularity at the time being to great as he was on a high from shaking hands with the new ‘Democratic’ Russian Premier. Nevertheless, White House staff caught scent of the story and threatened legal action (whether this was with Hart’s approval remains unclear), which prompted the Post to react in self-defence and publish the story anyway. The whole episode was blown totally out proportion, and while Hart remained personally popular, polls declared that ‘the Administration’ was failing, with the main fallout from the scandal being the contamination of VP Mario Cuomo’s ticket to succeed Hart.
[6] For better and for worst, Wendell Willkie was not Albert Beveridge – is the epitaph by which most Americans remember the 34th President. Elected in 1941, while WW2 was less than a year old, Willkie was already out of his depth as an ardent interventionist elected on an isolationist platform and owed much of his political capitalist to his VP, David Walsh, who did his best to ensure the President kept this to this tack. Early on Willkie scored huge success with the Matsuoka-Hull Agreement that ended talk of war between Japan and America as a result of the Knox Administration’s embargos. But even then events conspired in the President’s favour in the worst possible way when German U-boats torpedoed USS
Ranger.
America was at war, and Willkie, now vindicated moved the nation to a war footing and he was thrown onto the world stage with Joe Stalin and Britain’s J.R. Clynes. Sadly, this was an arena into which Willkie was rapidly outclassed in: conscious that Britain in skies of southern England, the Breton Redoubt, Norway and North Africa and Russia across the vast spaces of the Eastern Front were facing the brunt of the war, Willkie made concessions which prioritised Lend Lease (which the Democrats had been hoping to end) over supply America’s war effort. On some level this made sense, as the American armed forces were tiny compared to its allies and enemies, and needed time to build themselves up to a substantial force that act independently, but the President’s unwillingness to take risks and project American power frustrated many and for much of the war Americans, even in places when they would outnumber their allies, went severely underrepresented in High Command.
The fact was Willkie was an idealist, and it was to the post-war future that he was most keen to look forward to best personified in his Twenty Point Plan for Peace published after the Baghdad Conference with support from the Stalin and Morrison (Clynes’ successor). While mostly clarifying allied war aims, the Plan went further in calling for a United League of Nations which could arbitrate international disputes with out the need for violence. In this Willkie became the Father of the modern United Nations, however his good intentions and plans for the post-War world soon became compromised, as shortly before the 1944 election, the President suffered several heart attacks. Forced by doctors to remain in the US, Willkie had to leave more work to others until he was finally subdued by another heart attack and was succeeded by the dreaded isolationist Walsh.
[7] Out of the tragedy of Stassen’s death came Warren, which initially had many people groaning and little was expect to come from the effectively retired former California governor. Despite this Warren is largely said to have done a decent enough job given the turbulent period that he oversaw. At a time when the Civil Rights movement was getting its feet well and truly off the ground, Warren provided an impartial hand that oversaw the Truman Court ruling in
Parks vs Montgomery, the deployment of federal troops in the Atlanta Crisis – events which began the end of segregation and Jim Crow, however the President would often drag his heels over civil rights as a price for his impartiality and Warren would be long out of power by the time it ran its course.
One of the excuses Warren had for his lack of urgency on Civil Rights were events across the Pacific. As the Japanese position in South East Asia began to collapse under its own weight, and China descended into civil war between Jingwei and Zhou, Warren initially withdrew from the conflict until he reengaged again to prevent the islands Taiwan and Hainan from falling into Communist hands or back into Japanese. The occupation of the islands would notoriously bloody as American troops fought CCP insurgents and guerrilla Japanese settlers for increasingly vague reasoning, in addition to the fight they were already engaged in the Philippines, which was at least in defence of a legitimate government from armed rebels. The news reel footage especially painted a poor picture and rumours of atrocities on both sides compelled international condemnation, nevertheless the regime change in Tokyo and American material power soon made a difference and as the decade turned resistance died down and V. K. Wellington Koo was inaugurated as President of 2nd Chinese Republic in Taipei. While this might have given some retrospective purpose to the Quasi War in Asia, Americans nevertheless held a sour taste in their mouth, and record low opinion polls predicted a complete wash out of Republicans, first in the midterms, and then is the Presidential election.
Ultimately, Warren’s term as President speaks for itself – good intentions and sound thinking, confounded by procrastination in the White House and events beyond its control.
[8] As recent as ten years ago, its possible that Cox might have been raised higher in this list, but as public and academic opinion of the United States in the 1920s had dropped, so to does the defining President of that decade. James M. Cox would be the last President of the Progressive Era, though few expected him to amount to much until his shock defeat of war hero Gen. Leonard Wood in 1920.
Cox’s campaign pledge to ‘return to prosperity’ hit exactly the right tone with the war weary public and to avoid a post-war slump taxes were cut and selective tariffs were increased which would work mostly through the entire decade. Though beneath the surface Cox’s America was a myriad of contradictions: it was anti-big business, yet began to roll back regulations and trust busting; campaigned for tougher action on crime, yet post-Volstead Act the White House still stocked liquor, and VP Carter Glass had financial links to moonshiners in his native Virginia; Cox was vocal in support for self-determination for the Philippines and anti-Imperialist, but endorsed legislation that restricted enfranchisement of immigrants and minorities at home.
Part of the appeal of Cox era as the Roaring Twenties comes from the general zeitgeist of the period, but also a very structured and consistent effort by the President and his deputy Glass to control the image of them and the government. Both men had considerable newspaper interests and used them widely for their own ends in a manner not seen since the Jefferson/Hamilton era. Later in the decade, Cox then took to the radio and his weekly national broadcast became staple listening in millions of household. In effect, Cox was the first mass media president and his innovations would change campaigning and public relations forever and would for 50 years shield Cox from much of the blame that should fall on his administration for the Depression that gripped the country until WW2
[9] For some people, the Presidency is a waste for time – and so it was for William Jennings Bryan. The first President of the Century came to office after William McKinley declined a second term in office and a fractious Republican Party dubiously nominated Admiral Dewey at the last minute. Bryan had a solid reputation from the 1896 campaign and again planned to introduce a progressive and populist agenda. However, despite his lofty goals, Bryan ran into the brick wall of a vindictive Republican dominated Congress that refused to play ball. Bryan hoped to outflank Congress by once more appealing to the general public and in 1902 went on a speaking tour of the nation to drum up support of his agenda and force the Republicans to budge in face of public opinion.
While popularly received wherever he went (becoming one of the most seen national politicians of the time), Bryan was repeatedly attack in the press by friends – who wished to get on with the business of running the country – and foes – who simply wished he just stop. Returning to Washington he found little had changed, and little was accomplished in the rest of his tenure, besides the independence of Cuba. He, like his rival McKinley, refused re-election and has been since characterised as either President before his time, or being better off out of office altogether where he could better shape public opinion and policy for the better.
[10] Still cautious over the Bryan presidency, the Republicans would shackle their progressives by selecting the stalwart New York conservative as their candidate for the Presidency, whose ticket was finely balanced with Robert La Follette, and delivered a sound defeat to the Democrats on two occasions making him the first President since Grant to be successively elected to the Office. Despite Sherman’s conservativism, he had to suffer a Congress which was more and more receptive to Progressive ideas on both sides, and Sherman would reticently throw support behind Food and Drug regulation. Sherman also wanted to better project American power, in light of developments in Japan and post the Spanish-American War, signing the First Naval Bill that began a massive expansion of the Navy and introduced it as the third Dreadnought power.
This move would antagonise Tokyo and the already fraught relations with Japan would be strained further when the administration introduced limits on immigration that singled out Japanese moving to California. It’s from Sherman’s attitude toward racial minorities would tarnish his legacy among most Presidents of his era, though none have been so linked to the poor relations that would exist between the USA and an entire nation for the next 30-40 years.
Perhaps Sherman’s defining characteristic was that he managed to govern quietly in between Presidents whose terms were extremely tumultuous even by the standards of the time. Despite his double tenure in the office, few can identify Sherman as President and is only thought of (if ever) as the first President to die in office during the 20th Century.
1901-1905: William Jennings Bryan/Arthur Sewall (Democratic)
1900 def. George Dewey/Mark Hanna (Republican), Louis C. Hughes/Joshua Levering (Prohibition)
1905-1912: James S. Sherman*/Robert La Follette (Republican)
1904 def. William Randolph Hearst/Francis Cockrell (Democratic)
1908 def. George Gray/John A. Johnson (Democratic), Eugene V. Debs/Benjamin Hanford (Socialist)
1912-1913: Robert La Follette/Vacant (Republican)
1913-1921: Albert J. Beveridge/Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. (Republican)
1912 def. Oscar Underwood/George E. Chamberlain (Democratic), Eugene V. Debs/Benjamin Hanford (Socialist)
1916 def. Thomas Gore/Simeon Baldwin (Peace Democrats), Robert Lansing/Franklin D. Roosevelt (War Democrats), Robert La Follette/Victor Murdock (Progressive), Eugene V. Debs/Benjamin Hanford (Socialist)
1921-1929: James M. Cox/Carter Glass (Democratic)
1920 def. Leonard Wood/Miles Poindexter (Republican), Robert La Follette/Ernest Lundeen (Progressive)
1924 def. James Watson/Peter Norbeck (Republican), Robert La Follette/Magnus Johnson (Progressive)
1929-1933: Andrew Mellon/Hiram Johnson (Republican)
1928 def. Duncan U. Fletcher/William Gibbs McAdoo (Democratic)
1933-1937: William A. Ayres/Daniel J. Moody (Democratic)
1932 def. Joseph J. Blaine/George W. Norris (Republican)
1937-1941: Frank Knox/Charles L. McNary (Republican)
1936 def. William A. Ayres/Daniel J. Moody (Democratic)
1941-1945: Wendell Willkie*/David I. Walsh (Democratic)
1940 def. Frank Knox/Charles L. McNary (Republican)
1944 def. Arthur H. Vanderberg/Alf Landon (Republican), Richard Russel Jr./Leadner Perez (Dixiecrat)
1945-1949: David I. Walsh/Vacant (Democratic)
1949-1953: Harold Stassen*/Earl Warren (Republican)
1948 def. Claude Pepper/Harry F. Byrd (Democratic)
1952 def. Robert S. Kerr/W. Averell Harriman (Democratic)
1953-1957: Earl Warren/Vacant (Republican)
1957-1961: Earl Warren/Nelson Rockefeller (Republican)
1956 def. W. Averell Harriman/Albert Gore Sr. (Democratic)
1961-1969: Stuart Symington/Lyndon B. Johnson (Democratic)
1960 def. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr./William F. Knowland (Republican)
1964 def. George H. Bender/Everett Dirksen (Republican), John Sparkman/James Eastland (Dixiecrat)
1969-1973: Stuart Symington/Ralph Yarborough (Democratic)
1968 def. Hiram Fong/Richard Schweiker (Republican), Strom Thurmond/George Wallace (Dixiecrat)
1973-1979: Nelson Rockefeller*/John Connally (Republican)
1972 def. Terry Sanford/Wilbur Mills (Democratic), Ross Barnett/Curtis LeMay (Dixiecrat)
1976 def. Robert Byrd/Milton Shapp (Democratic)
1979-1983: John Connally**/Charles H. Percy (Republican)
1980 def. Henry M. Jackson/Cliff Finch (Democratic)
1983-1985: Charles H. Percy/Barry Goldwater (Republican)
1985-1993: Gary Hart/Mario Cuomo (Democratic)
1984 def. Charles H. Percy/John B. Anderson (Republican), Barry Goldwater/Bill Clements (National Union)
1988 def. Pete du Pont/Bob Dole (Republican)
1993-1997: Jack Kemp/James Stockdale (Republican)
1992 def. Mario Cuomo/Joe Biden (Democratic)
1997-????: Robert P. Casey/Barbara Boxer (Democratic)
1996 def. Jack Kemp/James Stockdale (Republican)