So The Atlantic Monthly has published a list by Ross Douthat:The Top 100: The Most Influential Figures in American History.
No disagreement, really, with most of the names on the list. It's heavily tilted toward state-statist figures, but then it's put together by historians, so we should none of us be surprised. I don't like the idea that Woodrow Wilson, Ralph Nader, Rachel Carson, and Lyndon Johnson have been so influential, but it's undeniable that they have been.
Still, I could add a few names of my own. Okay, my list is tilted to the positive side. I'll cop to that. But before I get to that, here's an offer for the negative side: Beardsley Ruml and Milton Friedman, for giving us income tax withholding. Ruml was chairman of Macy's and thus something of a capitalist, and Friedman is best known as an advocate of free markets. Still, they did what they did, and like the old Marine Corps saying goes, "One 'aww shit!' wipes out ten attaboys."
So my suggestions for names of people who have influenced America and the world to its ultimate benefit:
For example, Richard Sears, Alvah Roebuck, and Julius Rosenwald -- I have no quarrel with Sam Walton's appearance on the original list, but damn, if it weren't for Sears, Roebuck & Company...
King Camp Gillette - If you're not wearing a beard, you can thank King Gillette. If you shave your legs regularly, you can thank him as well. He didn't invent the safety razor, but he and his partner, William Nickerson, made the safety razor practical by providing sharp, disposable blades.
Leo Melamed - Influential former chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, he is widely regarded as the father of the financial futures market.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates - Are you using a PC? Maybe a Mac? No comment necessary then, is there?.
Michael Milken -- If you have cable television, if you use any phone service other than AT&T, you can thank Michael Milken.
Pete Ellis -- Never heard of him, have you? But if you think the right side won the Pacific War in 1945, you can thank Lt. Col Ellis, USMC (deceased).
Allen B. Du Mont -- First practical cathode-ray tube. First television station. First television network.
Jack St. Clair Kilby and Robert Noyce - Co-inventors (independently) of the monolithic integrated circuit.
You want influence? I give you Sears and Gillette, the microchip, computers and software, TV networks and cable TV and non-monopoly phone companies, the S&P 500 as a tradable instrument, and American victory against the Japanese in World War II.
Now that's influence. Historians, take note.