Trying to Measure Greatness

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

Presidential greatness has been pondered by amateurs and experts for two centuries. In 1948 Harvard Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. conducted the first formal survey, asking 55 "experts," the majority of whom were professional historians, to rate the Presidents. Lincoln, Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Wilson and Jefferson topped the list in that order.

Since then there have been six other reputable surveys, the latest just published by the Journal of American History. Hundreds of questions were sent to 1,997 historians by Robert K. Murray and Tim H. Blessing of Pennsylvania State University. Answers from 846 historians, a good return from this cantankerous breed, arrived in time for the first computer deadline, and the emerging data provided not only a fascinating profile of greatness, or lack of it, but an intriguing look at those who set the rankings.

In the new survey, as in the Schlesinger ratings, Lincoln was voted our best President. F.D.R. moved to second place, and Washington fell to third. Also rated as great: Jefferson, who supplanted Wilson in the top four. Rated as near great: Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Jackson, Truman. Above average: John Adams, Lyndon Johnson, Eisenhower, Polk, Kennedy, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Cleveland. Average: McKinley, Taft, Van Buren, Hoover, Hayes, Arthur, Ford,

Carter, Benjamin Harrison.

Below average: Taylor, Tyler, Fillmore, Coolidge, Pierce.

Failure: Andrew Johnson, Buchanan, Nixon, Grant, Harding. (William H. Harrison, Garfield and Reagan were not rated because they were not in office long enough for the historians to form judgments.)

Ike and Kennedy edged up from previous ratings.

Cleveland, however, who was eighth in the first survey, was down to 17th in the Murray-Blessing rankings. Of contemporary interest was the fact that Ford was graded higher than Carter, and out of the nine Presidents since 1929, all except Nixon rated average or above. Nixon got some credit but not enough to keep him out of the lowest-rated group.

Older historians, it turns out, were more lenient in judging Presidents. Toughest on Hoover, for instance, were those under 40 and easiest were those over 65, the very children of the Depression so often blamed on Hoover. Women historians (only 59 were tabulated) were generally harsher in judging Presidents than the men. For whatever reasons, they were particularly down on Polk and Washington. They rated Carter, L.B.J., Grant and Kennedy higher than did the men.

Northerners were easier on Rutherford B. Hayes than the experts in other regions. The South had a special feeling for the last Whig, Millard Fillmore. The Midwest gave Truman and Ike an edge. In almost every instance, a historian studying a specific President was more sympathetic to him. Military historians downgraded the Naval Academy's own Jimmy Carter. Afro-American historians rated Jefferson relatively lower; Western and Frontier historians put him higher.

For years there has been an assumption that Eastern Establishment historians dominated the scene and weighted assessments according to their bias and intellectual arrogance. This study may have discredited that myth. The institution that had the most Ph.D. historians was the University of Wisconsin, with 70. Harvard was a poor second, with 49. When Murray-Blessing separated the experts into categories such as the Ivy League and the Big Ten, they found insignificant variations in assessments. For instance, the Ivy League rated Chester Arthur lower and Martin Van Buren higher than did the folks in the Big Ten. Only their mothers could care.

Responding historians were generally enthusiastic about the survey, but Murray and Blessing concede that they got critical comments from colleagues on survey questions and organization. Nevertheless, the authors believe in their work enough to suggest that the ratings of past Presidents are not likely to change much in the future. The two scholars concluded from their data that those historians who participated made their rankings not on the dubious grounds of personality traits like idealism, flexibility and obduracy, but on the solid dimensions of actual presidential accomplishments. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.