Who Really Was "The Greatest President We Never Had?"

The Vulture

Banned
Personally, I think Splinter would have made a great president. Sadly, he was ineligible due to being born in Japan. And a rat.
 
What have you got against Bryan? He seems a nice enough guy to me. And I doubt if remonetarising silver would have had any terrible consequences.

If you're bothered about his attitude to teaching evolution, that was widely shared at the time, and not a matter about which the Federal government had anything much to say. He could have done little to promote it from the White House, and probably wouldn't have tried.


What do I have against Bryan? Not much, apart from his being a fuzzy-minded sort who spouted popular but poorly reasoned pseudo-policies, that he was totally unqualified in experience in a responsible public position, and a terrible administrator to boot. Consider: during his tenure as Wilson's secretary of state, he did little apart from sending out biblical tracts by the ton. It took the efforts of a Robert Lansing (uncle to the two Dulles brothers) to begin to undo the harm Bryan did.

Bryan in the White House would have been as incompetent as Obama, Harding, or Carter.
 
IMO..............

pre-1900: Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, and maybe John Fremont.

1900-1950: Eugene Debs, TR{in 1912}, Wendell Willkie, and definitely Henry Wallace.

post-1950: George McGovern, Ralph Nader, Earl Warren, Eugene McCarthy, JFK, Jr., Walter Mondale, and of course, RFK and MLK.
 
Alexander Hamilton. Henry Clay. Maybe Daniel Webster. We need more non-war hero Whigs.

More recently: Adlai Stevenson, RFK

On the other side: McCain
 
What do I have against Bryan? Not much, apart from his being a fuzzy-minded sort who spouted popular but poorly reasoned pseudo-policies, that he was totally unqualified in experience in a responsible public position, and a terrible administrator to boot. Consider: during his tenure as Wilson's secretary of state, he did little apart from sending out biblical tracts by the ton. It took the efforts of a Robert Lansing (uncle to the two Dulles brothers) to begin to undo the harm Bryan did.

Bryan in the White House would have been as incompetent as Obama, Harding, or Carter.

I thought he supported most of the social legislation that went through under Wilson. Since afaik he never held an executive office, on what basis do you consider him a terrible administrator? Do we really know?

As to his time as Sec of State, his arbitration treaties didn't achieve much, but I can't see they did much harm either. He supported Wilson's intervention in Mexico, which is certainly deplorable, but Wilson would have gone ahead anyway. Had the intervention taken place under a Bryan Administration, there is no reason to suppose it would have been any more thoroughly bungled than under Wilson. Indeed I'm not sure how it could have been :).

Afaics, the worst that can happen is that despite his most determined efforts, he may be unable to keep America out of WW1. But then Wilson also failed at that, so it pretty much "all comes out in the wash" . I agree he probably wouldn't go down as a great President, but I see no reason to expect anything very terrible.
 
Last edited:
Bryan would have been better than Wilson, that's like saying that diet soda is better for you than battery acid. He would not have been a massive racist ass who locked up political dissidents and made the KKK cool again.

Off the top of my head:

Horace Greeley would have been a better man leading reconstruction than the too-trusting President Grant. Greeley would also call the Southern Bluff of a insurgency, although his mental health might be too limited to last.

Henry Cabot Lodge instead of Harding may well have addressed the Depression before it happened.

Al Gore in 2000 would have been pushed into superstardom by the 9-11 attacks and a response that didn't discard all of the goodwill earned from the world for the tragedy. Since Gore would almost certainly not deregulate things as Bush did, we'd probably have no gulf oil disaster, no Iraq war, and while our economy would probably still be weak, it would not have a massive systemic deficit that Bush created--Gore would probably continue to pay down the deficit until 9-11 forced a large response.

Chester Arthur rose above the corruption of the Gilded Age. Arthur deserves credit for this and for pushing civil service reform. I'd suggest that an enlarged Arthur Presidency would do the nation good.

Finally, Stephen Douglas as PotUS instead of James Buchanan would not allow the South to Arm as they did, probably acting decisively in an unpopular police action instead of a civil war. Lincoln's task would be much easier as a result.
 
President Schwarzenegger, of course

president.jpeg
 
Bryan in the White House would have been as incompetent as Obama, Harding, or Carter.


Why Harding?

As I understand it, the big problem with his Administration was corruption. From what I know of Bryan, I wouldn't expect him to be corrupt, or to tolerate corruption around him.

In other respects, was the Harding Administration particularly bad? For foreign affairs, it had an excellent Secretary of State in Charles E Hughes, and it included other men of ability like Hoover. If Bryan can do that well, while avoiding the corruption scandals, he won't be doing too badly.
 
Some I'd much prefer.

Thomas R. Marshall, especially if he replaces Wilson in either 1912 or 1916.

Chester A. Arthur if he ran again would be great too... shame he would've died.

Alexander Hamilton. Henry Clay. Maybe Daniel Webster. We need more non-war hero Whigs.
Precisely. We also needed some not-dead-in-a-month ones.

I'd also recommend a 2000 McCain coincidentally.
 
Last edited:
To 1850: Alexander Hamilton, DeWitt Clinton, Henry Clay

1850 to 1900: Stephen Douglas, William T. Sherman, William Marcy Tweed

1900 to 1950: TR in 1912, Charles Evans Hughes, John J Pershing

1950 to present: Adlai Stevenson, RFK, Sam Nunn, Gore in 2000, Teddy K. in 76
 
Afaics, the worst that can happen is that despite his most determined efforts, he may be unable to keep America out of WW1. But then Wilson also failed at that, so it pretty much "all comes out in the wash".
To be fair, Bryan got tossed out of Wilson's administration specifically for pointing out that Wilson's actions were going to result in the US getting dragged into World War I, so I don't think you can really blame for that.
 
John McCain, either in 2000 or 2008.

Henry M. Jackson in 1972 or 1976.

Thomas E. Dewey in 1944.

Possibly Al Smith in 1928, maybe he would dealt more effectively with the Depression.

Charles Evans Hughes in 1916.

I have a soft spot for William Jennings Bryan too.
 
Soory for the bump but i heard people suggest Powell would of been a good President when it comes to the handling of 9-11
He's always seemed more of a follower for me. IMO that's why he never pursued the Presidency (along with his wife's opposition).

John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Albert Gallatin (unable due to birthplace), Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Joshua Chamberlain, Oscar Underwood, Thomas Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Henry Wallace, Thomas Dewey, Earl Warren, Scoop Jackson, Al Gore
 
Top