The question has persisted since 1948, when Arthur Schlesinger Sr. conducted the first poll to rate presidential performances. In subsequent polls, historians, political scientists and law professors have been casting their votes to recognize what they consider to be the best and worst examples of American political leadership.

Last October, with the 2000 presidential election looming large on the horizon, The Wall Street Journal mailed ballots to 132 prominent professors of history, law and political science, asking them to rate the presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton.

Among the 78 respondents was UD's Thomas Muncy Keith Professor of History, Raymond R. Wolters, a faculty member since 1965 who teaches 20th-century American history.

After meeting with colleagues David Allmendinger, history, and Gerard Mangone, marine studies, Wolters cast his vote in the survey, which appeared in the paper's Nov. 16 issue.

Respondents were asked to rate each president on a standard five-point scale (from highly superior to well below average), with resulting totals divided into Schlesinger's original six-category ranking system: great, near great, above average, average, below average and failures.

For Wolters, a key ingredient in rating presidential performance is the conditions faced by each president and how each responded to individual challenges.

While Americans would have to wait a month to learn whether George W. Bush or Al Gore would be the nation's next president, survey respondents had little difficulty in naming the nation's first chief executive, George Washington, as the greatest president.

"As a general, he defeated England, the greatest military power on Earth at the time," Wolters said. "As our first president, he helped America succeed as a republic at a time when republics were the exception."

The conventional wisdom in the late 1700s, Wolters said, was that people were so venal, selfish and corrupt that they could never be successful in ruling themselves.

"The examples were Greece and Rome, both of which began as democracies and ended as empires because of selfishness," Wolters said. "After these early democracies degenerated, the people demanded strong governments, so for this reason, most people in Washington's time believed that democracies were doomed to failure."

Joining Washington in The Wall Street Journal's "Great" category are Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, choices that do not sit entirely well with Wolters.

"My colleagues, David Allmendinger and Gerard Mangone, were both very high on Lincoln, but I demurred," Wolters said. "Lincoln was unquestionably a great human being, but I feel he could have used more statesmanship to avoid the Civil War. I think a compromise could have been reached that would have spared the lives of 600,000 soldiers."

While he gave Franklin Roosevelt a No. 3 rating, Wolters said he would probably not do so the next time he is asked.

"Liberal historians give FDR high marks because he expanded the size of the government," Wolters said. "He was a superb commander-in-chief during World War II, but there are questions about how we got into the war. I would no longer consider him great."

Despite differences of opinion on FDR's performance as an economic leader and world statesman, he has remained at or near the top since being rated No. 3 in the Schlesinger polls of 1948 and 1962.

The Siena Tracking Study, conducted by the Siena Research Institute, gave FDR top ranking in polls conducted in 1982, 1988 and 1994. The same survey placed Lincoln in second place while FDR's cousin Theodore Roosevelt earned third place honors. Washington earned a fourth place ranking in all three Siena polls.

One of the biggest surprises in the survey, Wolters noted, was Ronald Reagan, who received an eighth place rating, just ahead of Dwight Eisenhower, James Polk and Woodrow Wilson, to round out the list of "near great" presidents.

"Reagan won the Cold War and his supply-side economics ushered in a new era of prosperity. His reputation will only improve as time passes," Wolters said. "I believe the only thing that will prevent him from moving to the 'great' class is the fact that the challenges facing Reagan were not as great as those facing Washington, Lincoln and FDR."

One thing that Reagan did have in common with the top-rated presidents, according to Wolters, is the fact the he had a special quality that appealed to a cross section of Americans.

"George Washington had a presence that commanded respect," Wolters said. "The same can be said about FDR and Reagan–they lifted the spirit of the nation."

The author of The Burden of Brown: 30 Years of School Desegregation, which won the American Bar Association's 1985 Silver Gavel Award for best book on a legal topic, Wolters said he enjoyed the opportunity, but would make a few changes if asked to participate in the next Wall Street Journal presidential rating survey.

"I think that Woodrow Wilson (No. 11) is overrated and does not belong in the near great category," Wolters said. "Instead, I would like to see Calvin Coolidge accorded a higher ranking than his current rating at No. 25, just below Bill Clinton," Wolters said. "Coolidge presided over a period of peace and prosperity and did not make any mistakes while in office. I think he should be in the Near Great category."