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The Most Over-rated U.S. President
Rating U.S. Presidents is a exercise typically performed by historians, journalists, and political buffs as a means for comparing the accomplishments (or failures) of the 40+ men who have held the post. The most commonly referred to studies are those conducted by Arthur Schlesinger in 1948 and 1962 and in 1996 (conducted by his son). There are also countless opinion and rating polls measuring the opinions of laypeople. (Schlesinger's surveyed primarily professional historians and a couple of politicians).* In nearly every poll Abraham Lincoln and George Washington are listed at the top and the balance of the top ten shifts around a bit but is generally comprised of the same 10 presidents give or take one or two. The only obvious anomaly is Ronald Reagan, ranked as high #1 in some public opinion surveys and near the bottom in others (he was ranked 25 in the 1996 Schlesinger poll).
The one president commonly ranked in the top ten in most polls that has to be seriously scrutinized is Woodrow Wilson. Wilson is generally considered the first "modern" president. The concept of the 8 hour workday, Federal Income Tax, the Federal Reserve System, and child labor laws are among the points he is often commended. That he happened to be in office when the 17th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution were implemented, must also be included on his plus column although he played little active role in the passage of either Amendment. In fact, was considered a hurdle to overcome during passage of the 19th Amendment. (17th Amendment allowed for the popular election of Senators and the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote).
The one Amendment for which he did play an active role was the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale of alcohol. His belief in Prohibition displays the major characteristic of his presidency. Woodrow Wilson was an idealist and he intended to change the world to match his vision. Unfortunately, his vision had little ground in reality and his analysis of society proved misguided, to say the least.
In an odd irony, the one area where he felt he was walking in step with the real world was in race relations. He lemented that the noble Klansman fighting to protect the honor of white women against the black menace was all to true. His praise of D.W. Grifith's Birth of Nation gave rise to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.
The real significance of his legacy; however, does not rest with his domestic policies. It is with his foreign policy model, which remains the model practiced today. As was his characteristic, he created a policy model to match his vision of the world. Unfortunately, the reality of international diplomacy then and now could never approach that vision.
Wilson asserted a moral ideal into foreign policy. Before Wilson, foreign relations were conducted in the arena of competing self interests. Each participant negotiated based on their own self-interest and the relative economic, political, and military strength of the participants. It was a model developed primarily by Great Britain in an era when its military and economic strength gave it a significant advantage in policy negotiations. Wilson laid the foundation for a new policy model by overlaying a moral component. Negotiators were expected to work under an umbrella of a moral directive, a set of universal objectives that each side was expected or compelled to respect.
The most important byproduct of the "idealism" model for foreign policy is the creation of a third party role in international negotiations. There could now be an overseer; someone, country, or organization that ensured that the universal ideas would take precedence over self interest. As conceived, this third party role would consist of an unbiased actor respected equally by all parties to a negotiation. Initially it took the form of the League of Nations and later the United Nations. However; the concept would be expanded so that a third party nation such as the United States or England could wield the "moral stick" and insert themselves into any international policy negotiation.
This model began its legacy of failure with the Treaty of Versailles which concluded the First World War. The United States (and Wilson himself), wielding the moral stick, was essentially dismissed as the victorious European nations constructed a treaty that extracted their pound of flesh from the vanquished. The rules for failure were set during these negotiations. (1). Universal moral rules will never trump self-interest. (2). There is no real place for a third party in the critical parts of negotiation. Because the third party always has its own biases its views are dismissed during the critical points of negotiation. This has been repeated countless times during the century of warefare. (3) Rather than speed up negotiations, the addition of a moral component merely adds an additional element that must be accounted for in all dialog. It simply makes the list longer rather than facilitate the process.
Woodrow Wilson changed the nature of international diplomacy, complicating it to a level that allows for only the trivial to be resolved. He left the world with an unrealistic foreign policy model that proved disasterous during the century of warfare. It is thought he failed to change the format of international diplomacy when his League of Nations plan proved unsuccessful. Unfortunately, while the League of Nations did not last, the model for diplomacy lives on.
The lesson may be that political scientists make poor leaders.
* Schlesinger's surveys consist primarily of older, white male historians.
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