MY AMERICAN GREATS

By Brian Hannon

It should have been the King.

If Joe Public was going to name some undeserving people as the ten “greatest Americans,” they at least could have put Elvis at the head of the list. Alas, Presley only came in eighth.

A survey conducted throughout June by AOL and the Discovery Channel for the latter’s “Greatest American” show resulted in a top ten list of some of our most prominent citizens, past and present. A few are indeed the best America has produced. Unfortunately, it seems a majority of the 2.4 million people who voted mistook prominence for greatness.

1. Ronald Reagan
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Martin Luther King Jr.
4. George Washington
5. Ben Franklin

Not much to complain about there, with two founding fathers, the great emancipator, and the hero/martyr of the Civil Rights movement in the top five. Reagan as the greatest American ever is debatable, not only due to his über conservative politics that favored the already-well-off segment of society, but because his supreme claim to fame—winning the Cold War—was far from a solo achievement. Yet after his recent death and lionization, verging on a proclamation of sainthood by the ruling Republicans, it is easy to understand how the pliable masses would gift the Gipper an extra-large vote count.

Yet it is in the second half of the top ten where Americans show just how impressionable they are, the victims of pop culture fixation and memories with a very short leash.

6. George W. Bush
7. Bill Clinton
8. Elvis Presley
9. Oprah Winfrey
10. Franklin D. Roosevelt

FDR’s appearance was the only name that kept me from dismissing this whole thing as a practical joke akin to the “email beta test” hoax alleging Microsoft was giving away cash for forwarding an electronic chain letter.

Honestly, George W. Bush is the sixth greatest person in the history of America? And only Franklin, Washington, MLK, Lincoln, and Reagan top him? Are we talking about the same George W. Bush who happens to be president of the United States due to some twisted joke the gods of politics have played on us? If people truly believe that, even during this inglorious second term sprinkled with calls for Bush’s impeachment, then all the acclaim should actually go to Karl Rove for being the nation’s greatest seller of tainted goods. (We could hand Rove a plaque wrapped in indictment papers for outing CIA agent Valerie Plame.)

I’m a Bill Clinton fan, but I don't think even he would put his name on that list. For my money Clinton was an outstanding, albeit scandal-plagued president, but he has too much respect for history and great leaders such as his own inspiration and more deserving recipient of this award, John F. Kennedy.

Elvis was a sensational entertainer who lit up American music during his time using a style he co-opted rather than innovated and, as such, deserves to be drafted in the second round of national greatness by an expansion team looking for a morale booster. You want a great musician who embodied America? Look no further than the dearly departed Johnny Cash.

As for Oprah, we’ll get to her in a moment.

When I first ranted about this list, my father told me, “Everyone is entitled to an opinion.” And it’s true, as my brother, Jay, proved when he offered up his own top ten that slotted Evel Knievel in the four spot, and U.S. soccer star Eric Wynalda at six. But that opinion entitlement extends to Frank Hannon’s eldest son, too. So here it is, a compilation of American greats I believe could all have been better top tenners than Dubya, Bubba, the King, or Oprah.

The United Kingdom, according to the BBC, held a similar poll in 2002 that named Winston Churchill as the greatest ever Brit. With the Second World War well engrained in the contemporary American mind thanks to Tom Brokaw and his Greatest Generation tome, how did Dwight D. Eisenhower get overlooked? Or Patton or MacArthur? Franklin Delano is a great call, but Teddy Roosevelt could also make a strong claim for the top ten based on his impact via railroad legislation, the Treaty of Portsmouth, and the Panama Canal.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was given his just due on the list, but what about other great African Americans such as abolitionist Frederick Douglass, slave turned inspirational black educator Booker T. Washington, or even the firebrand Malcolm X? Certainly Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson are groundbreaking black Americans who have reached iconic status. If entertainers are viable candidates, B. B. King and Ray Charles should give Elvis a run for his money, while Chuck Berry has to be a top vote in the music category for the simple fact that the man pretty much invented this little thing we call rock ’n’ roll.

Transplanted American Albert Einstein was the greatest scientist history has known. The Wright Brothers
pioneered human flight, and Charles Lindbergh showed us its possibilities. Thomas Alva Edison lit our homes, and James Watson diagrammed DNA with his English partner, Francis Crick. Neil Armstrong made a giant leap when he put the first footprint on the moon. Edwin Hubble corrected Einstein on expanding galaxies and discovered the first evidence of the Big Bang, while Carl Sagan brought their ideas into the TV sets and the consciousness of millions of Americans.

Walt Disney created an entertainment empire that still produces memorable characters and sparks countless little smiles. And let’s not forget my personal favorite, Jim Henson, whose audience totaled hundreds of millions and about whom Time magazine wrote, “he had the most profound influence on children of any entertainer of his time.” In a simplified yet simultaneously more complex medium, Poe and Twain and Hemingway and Steinbeck stand out as American greats.

Another arguable candidate is Henry Ford. He was no sweetheart—blatantly anti-Semitic and happy to lay off thousands of workers to save profits—but built cars for the Everyman while transforming industrial production and inventing the franchise, both of which are innovations that shaped our nation for better and worse. Modern times produced another American business giant in the form of Bill Gates, who even Apple aficionados have to admit revolutionized the personal computing world and subsequently the world at large.

Oprah Winfrey is certainly no slouch in both the entertainment and business worlds. It’s undoubtedly a
happy sign of our times that a woman, and an African American woman at that, can gain a spot in the top ten of our nation’s perceived greats. Oprah has certainly proved herself an impressive businesswoman, becoming the first African American female to own a production company, while doing her fair share for society by promoting literacy and highlighting important issues such as child abuse on her talk show. She is an actress and producer and philanthropist and media mogul who mentors to a global television audience.

All impressive, but when you come right down to it, there are more deserving females to be lauded for American greatness. Oprah did not shuttle hundreds of slaves to freedom (Harriet Tubman) or defy segregation (Rosa Parks); nor did she help secure women’s suffrage (Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) or serve as the first woman on the Supreme Court (Sandra Day O’Connor) or break the gender barriers of the sky as the first female to pilot a transatlantic flight (Amelia Earhart) or as the first American woman in outer space (Sally Ride). She did not found the American Red Cross (Clara Barton), write the cornerstone work of environmentalism (Rachel Carson), prove that X and Y chromosomes determine gender (Nettie Stevens), or help trace the origins of humanity (Mary Leakey).

And Oprah certainly has not brought relief to millions of hungry children with handy snack cakes (Little Debbie) or provided a young man from Bangor, Maine, his first opportunity for an obsessive infatuation with a Hollywood starlet (Winona Ryder). She can’t even do the voice of Bart Simpson (Nancy Cartwright).

This, of course, is just one person’s opinion. My alternative listing of great Americans is not an attempt to undermine those on the list, with the exception of a certain sitting president whose largest achievement can be enumerated by a body count. The point is to remind us that greatness is not a matter of popular political ideology or television face time. As famed British historian A. J. P. Taylor put it, “most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer—the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.”

When tallying national greatness, America needs to look a little more deeply into its beer. 

 

The current Journal in print is
Winter

5 1/2" x 5" 2008 Wolf Moon Calendar just $10.00 each
More Info

More Info

© Wolf Moon Press 2002-2007 all rights reserved.

Submission Guidelines