After 4 months, I figure it’s worth getting back to the Most Prominent Politician project, particularly since all the other things I have to do this fine Sunday afternoon are either drudgery or intimidating.
Ohio is a very difficult state to rank. It has had a large amount of prominent politicians over its years, but there’s about 18 that more or less all stand together. A combination of powerful but not extraordinary senators with second-rate presidents means that anyone could rank these people differently. Good for arguing, bad for anything definitive.
1. William McKinley. Hardly a great president or even a good one, but McKinley did provide a bit more energy to the office than his predecessors. His primary reason for being here is his role in the Spanish-American War. Although historians have questioned McKinley’s real commitment to imperialism, arguing that he acted because the hard-core imperialists like Theodore Roosevelt were questioning his manhood and patriotism, his approval of the invasions of Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, etc., were an epochal change in the history of American foreign policy.
2. William Howard Taft. One of the nation’s most underrated presidents, if by accident, Taft passed a tremendous amount of important Progressive Era legislation. He busted more trusts than TR and conserved more land than TR. He’s forgotten in part because he totally lacked charisma, in part because he was a terrible politician, and in part because Roosevelt turned on him and slammed him in the Autobiography. Of course, he later became a Supreme Court justice.
3. Salmon Chase. Secretary of the Treasury during the Lincoln administration and one of the powerful Republicans who guided the United States through the Civil War. Strong abolitionist, coined the slogan of the Free Soil Party: “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men.” Helped create the greenback, financing the Civil War. Like his New York counterpart and Secretary of State William Seward, Chase was more than a little outraged that a bumpkin like Abraham Lincoln was president instead of himself and wanted to challenge Lincoln for the nomination in 1864, having lost out to the Illinois man in 1860. To eliminate this threat, Lincoln kicked Chase upstairs, naming him Chief Justice. Very interesting man with somewhat floating politics over the years, having supported Democrats, Republicans, Whigs, Free Soil, and Liberal Republican presidential candidates.
4. Robert Taft. Mr. Republican himself and one of the most powerful politicians of mid-20th century America. Taft desperately wanted to be president, failing to more moderate candidates in 1940, 1948, and 1952. He led the conservative movement at a time when it was at its nadir and helped moved the Republican Party back to the right. He authored the odious Taft-Hartley Act, severely curbing union power in 1947. Taft opposed U.S. intervention in World War II and even remained suspicious of foreign entanglements after the war, uncomfortable with NATO and believing the Korean War unconstitutional. Served briefly as Senate Majority Leader in 1953 before dying of cancer.
5. John Sherman. One of the Gilded Age’s most powerful politicians and frequently in the discussion for a presidential nomination. In fact, Sherman was a likely choice in 1880 until his own campaign manager, James Garfield, was chosen instead. Sherman is most known for the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, the first federal law to limit monopolies, even if in actuality it was applied only against unions and never against corporations. Secretary of the Treasury under Hayes, Secretary of State for McKinley. Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations for 10 years, over 2 different periods.
6. Mark Hanna. One of the great political managers in American history and the ultimate Gilded Age figure, Hanna shepherded McKinley into the White House, tied the Republican Party to corporations even more tightly than usual, and eventually became a senator himself. His role as the quintessential Gilded Age insider and plutocrat earns him this high ranking, even if his own record as an elected official is not that outstanding. I am also forced to display this picture of Hanna and his facial hair in 1877, though unlike many men of his generation, he got rid of it when it became unfashionable.
7. Benjamin Wade. Abolitionist and Senator. Criticized Lincoln as “white trash” because the latter was so slow on abolition. Also criticized Lincoln’s lenient ideas for Reconstruction. Authored the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864 that would become the model for Congressional Reconstruction in 1867, demanding 50% of southern white males to sign loyalty oaths for readmittance of a given state into the Union.
8. Rutherford B. Hayes. I’m somewhat chagrined by including Hayes, since the main thing he did as president was accomplished by party insiders, i.e., the end of Reconstruction. Still, Hayes supported the pulling out of U.S. troops from the South and provided only moderate resistance to the crushing of African-American rights, though in this sense he was certainly no more to the right than most northern white Republican leaders in the late 1870s. He also ordered U.S. troops to crush the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, beginning a long tradition of American politicians marshaling the army or national guard to serve as the goons of corporate America.
9. Edwin Stanton. An antislavery Democrat, Stanton had one of the more interesting political careers of the Civil War era. An antislavery Democrat, James Buchanan named Stanton Attorney General. Lincoln brought him on to replace Simon Cameron as Secretary of War in 1862 after Cameron wrote that freed slaves should be used against the Confederacy and not knowing of Stanton’s role in the report. Stanton is most famous for continuing in the position during Andrew Johnson’s administration; his firing sparked the impeachment of Johnson. Grant appointed Stanton to the Supreme Court in 1869 but he died 4 days after being confirmed by the Senate.
10. Warren Harding. Good ol’Harding. Arguably our flat-out most incompetent president. Hell of a golf game. Liked riding bikes. Enjoyed the company of the ladies.
I did think about including some more recent Ohioans such as Howard Metzenbaum, John Glenn, or John Boehner, but I am completely unconvinced that any of them should be in the top 10. The other obvious candidate is James Garfield, but what did he do except get shot and be buried in an unbelievably over the top tomb, which I highly recommend visiting next time you are in Cleveland.