By the Maui Curmudgeon (32nd in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT: 1933-1944 ~ 32nd U.S. President

The offspring of the fabulously wealthy patrician families Delano and Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt seems to have been molded for his time and the position of presidency from the very start. A graduate of Groton, FDR was strongly influenced by its president, Reverend Endicott Peabody, who called FDR to a life of social responsibility through public service.

He graduated from Columbia Law School, but law bored him, and in 1910 FDR gained a state senate seat in New York in the party of his father (not his great cousin Teddy), the Democratic Party, which, beginning with Grover Cleveland, had made its way through education and hard work to realize the values embodied in the likes of Abraham Lincoln were the ones who had to guide the country for it to thrive, values which the Republican party, beginning with Warren G. Harding, rebuked.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (31st in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

HERBERT HOOVER: 1929-1933 ~ 31st U.S. President

Herbert Hoover is the very embodiment of an important lesson in American public life: intelligence and experience does not necessarily make a leader. How smart was he? Well, at the end of World War I, he accompanied President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference.

Attending was John Maynard Keynes, the brilliant British economist. When the conference was over, Keynes said, “Hoover was the only man who emerged from the ordeal of Paris with an enhanced reputation.”

Hoover came into the presidency as the heir apparent. Though President Calvin Coolidge despised Hoover (he called him “wonder boy” out of jealousy), Hoover, who had been Secretary of Commerce under the false “boom years” of the early 1920’s, took the reins supremely confident in American business and conservative rights. Was anyone more wrong? In less than seven months, people really were jumping out of windows to their deaths.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (30th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

CALVIN COOLIDGE: 1923-1929 ~ 30th U.S. President

If Warren G. Harding did nothing, Calvin Coolidge was inert. When Dorothy Parker was told of Coolidge’s death in 1933, she asked, “How can they tell?” Steeped in politics, Coolidge climbed the political pole as city councilman, state representative, mayor, state senator, lieutenant governor, governor, and vice-president (most of those in Massachusetts). The litany of his administration’s crimes against humanity reads like Harding’s, amplified.

THE BAD (It would take books - don’t read them. Here’s some highlights):
The Ku Klux Klan claimed 5 million members in 1925, and marched to Washington, where it was received favorably. With abandon, it was murdering blacks, jews, catholics, and women who refused to be subordinate. Coolidge shared many of those views, particularly those on women.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (29th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

WARREN G. HARDING: 1921-1923 ~ 29th U.S. President

Genial and easygoing, the Republican poker player from Ohio had just four years experience in the Senate during which he did nothing. He won election with 404 electoral votes, an unprecedented landslide, and more than 60% of the popular vote. Wilson oversaw a Democratic majority in Congress, but Harding brought in outrageous majorities of Republicans in 1920 (a 24-person majority in the Senate).

He was a pig.

As historian Paula Fass has written, “The presidency of Warren G. Harding began in mediocrity and ended in corruption.” Whereas Ulysses S. Grant chose men for his administration because he thought them able, and they turned out corrupt, Harding chose men because they were corrupt, and they could enrich him.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (28th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

WOODROW WILSON: 1913-1921 ~ 28th U.S. President

A forgotten, highly intelligent, near-great president, Woodrow Wilson would never have become president without the stubbornness of Teddy Roosevelt, who wanted the presidency back so badly he left the Republican Party to run in 1912 as an independent, splitting the Republicans.

A quiet man who spent a great deal of time in academia, Wilson eventually became president of Princeton University in 1902. During his years there, he wrote some of the definitive texts on American politics, including “Congressional Government,” which chastised the Congress for its poor construction. He became one of the nation’s first political commentators, and was admired for his quick wit, his ability to explain complicated processes simply, and his unfailing sense of optimism. By 1910, he was asked to run for governor of New Jersey, he accepted and won.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (27th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT: 1909-1913 ~ 27th U.S. President

An enormous, kindly man, William Howard Taft was steeped in law. A graduate of Yale, he earned his law degree and began his career as a county prosecutor. Between 1886 and 1900 he was a state superior court judge in Ohio, and solicitor general of the United States. He spent eight years as a federal judge on the Sixth Circuit, and he was dean of the University of Cincinnati Law School.

In 1900, President William McKinley appointed him civil governor or the Philippines, and it was under his guidance that Teddy Roosevelt first moved the country to independence. In 1904, Roosevelt made Taft his Secretary of War, and during Teddy’s second term the men became close friends. In 1908, Roosevelt named Taft as his successor, and Taft easily won election. Then all the trouble began.

The Bad:

He disliked politics. (”Politics makes me sick,” he said.) He was a man who enjoyed the rigors and the rules of law. He was more comfortable following a set of precepts than designing them. This lead to all sorts of troubles, including his inability to help formulate and push through Congress bills, especially tariffs, and a domestic agenda.

He lacked the ability to pick good men for his administration, despite the best of intentions. He chose Philander C. Knox (a lawyer) for his secretary of state, a man who had no diplomatic skills or international relations, and a zeal to protect American business interests aboard to the detriment of the administration’s policy initiatives. During four years, Knox bungled relations with Japan, China, Britain, France and Germany.

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By Maui Curmudgeon

Well, it’s August and time to update our look at how one corner of Europe is viewing America, especially our presidential election. The Economist has been around since 1843, and covers the world more thoroughly than any American publication does. Here are the highlights of its recent issue:

A cover shot of Alexander Solzhenitsyn marks the great writer’s death. The Economist bemoans the fact that in spite of being freer now than it was under the Communists, Russia has no one to “speak truth to power” as he did.

The magazine loves the movie “Tropic Thunder.”

It muses on the wonder that, as far as the financial numbers go, America is not yet in recession while most of Europe almost certainly is, a strange fact since the recession is caused by American fiscal malfeasance in the banking and credit arena (read the housing mortgage fiasco). It also wonders if GM will remain viable as a company, with a $15.5 billion loss this past quarter. it also reports that Chrysler is getting out of the auto leasing business, as perhaps all three American automakers may.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (26th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT: 1901-1909 ~ 26th U.S. President

A veritable titan of a president, Teddy Roosevelt inspires a good deal of love and hate, being the very embodiment of contradiction. After reading the following, you’ll wonder why the man didn’t implode. Here was a fellow who, during William McKinley’s push for war and empire building in 1897, called anti-imperialists “unhung traitors and liars, slanderers, and scandalmongers.” Then, Teddy turned around and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for negotiating a peace treaty between Russia and Japan.

The contradictions are nearly endless. He was a weak asthmatic boy who, with determination, worked to become a man of great physical power. He loved to hunt and slaughter untold numbers of wild game, but pushed hard to conserve both those prey and their environments. He loved individualism, but fought mightily for governmental regulation and trust busting. In short, he was a conservative individual who worked hard to create a liberal state. If he ran for office today, he’d be a liberal denouncing the criminal acts of the Republican Party, reinvented by Ronald Reagan, but cheering the recent Supreme Court ruling that the 2^nd amendment does indeed give Americans the right to own guns.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (25th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

WILLIAM MCKINLEY: 1897-1901  ~ 25th U.S. President

After the lethargy of the Harrison administration, and the growing problems of Grover Cleveland’s second term, it almost takes a reader’s breath away to hit upon a whirlwind such as Republican William McKinley. I find very little to like about the man, but you’ve got to admire the single-mindedness and determination he showed again and again as he, for all intents and purposes, got exactly what he wanted.

That admiration may come from a foolish and tiny connection: my soccer field was where McKinley was assassinated. In 1901, the Pan American Games were held at my school (this was a year or two before I attended) in Upstate New York. For a while, it was called McKinley field.

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By the Maui Curmudgeon (23rd in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

BENJAMIN HARRISON: 1889-1893-1897  ~ 23rd U.S. President

The peanut butter in the Grover Cleveland sandwich. The president between Cleveland’s two terms. His administration can be summed in one word - boring.

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