Gender aside, who would YOU rather see on the $20 bill?

After reading this piece by the wonderfully named Feminista Jones, arguing that putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill would actually undermine her legacy, I got to thinking: Who would I rather see on the double sawbuck in place of Andrew Jackson?

I mean, you know, demographics aside. Me not being all that big on identity politics and all.

The simple answer is “just about anybody,” including Harriet Tubman and whoever the also-rans were behind her in the Women on 20s contest.

Jackson’s not my fave president. I’ve always sort of seen his electoral victory over the vastly more qualified John Quincy Adams as a moment, if not the moment, when American politics went off the rails. I mean, good one on the Battle of New Orleans (even though the war was over), but just not one of the greats, to my way of thinking. Also, Davy Crockett was my hero when I was a pre-schooler, and Davy (who split with Jackson over the Trail of Tears), if anything, thought less of him than I do.

So whom would I pick to replace him? This is an occasion for another Top Five List:

  1. John Adams — My favorite Founding Father. I have long believed that history gave him short shrift. Everybody remembers Jefferson for writing the Declaration of Independence. But there would have been no declaration without Adams. He’s the guy who tirelessly rammed it through the Continental Congress, while Jefferson sat there like a bump on a log. In fact, it’s likely that it was Adams’ decision to have Jefferson draft the actual document, because he knew the Virginian had a way with words. But Adams was far more the author of our liberty than Jefferson. You say Washington is the Father of our Country? Well, Adams was the one who set him up to become that, by pushing him as the guy to lead our army. For that matter, Adams was the one who proposed that there be a Continental Army to begin with. Then there were his significant contributions as a diplomat in Paris and London during and after the war, which did a lot to make our victory possible. Sure, his presidency wasn’t anything to brag on, but you don’t even have to have been a president to be on a bill. Ask Franklin and Hamilton.
  2. Franklin D. Roosevelt — Led us through the greatest crises in our history, outside of the Civil War — and Lincoln’s already on the five. And he did it with such elan. Who else in our history could have bucked us up and kept us going through the ’30s and early ’40s? No one. And yeah, he’s already on the dime, but he still comes in second — or even first, making Adams second — on my list.
  3. Martin Luther King — After you mention Lincoln and Roosevelt, whose spoken words stirred the American spirit with more power? He inspired us to be the kind of country we always meant to be. We’re still working on that, and he still inspires us.
  4. Harriet Tubman — For all the reasons she won the recent competition to come up with a woman to put on the list. And not just because she’s a twofer — y’all know I don’t go in for such things. Did I ever tell you that when my wife spent a year up in Pennsylvania with our youngest daughter, while the daughter was training at a ballet school, they lived in an antebellum house that had been part of the Underground Railroad? True story. So I must confess to that personal connection.
  5. John Glenn — I’ve always found the first American to orbit the Earth one of the more admirable people of my lifetime. Also, I wanted to have at least one surprise nominee in my five, and Bryan got me to thinking again today about how much I love “The Right Stuff.” And while he’s a nonpresidential nominee, he was my favorite candidate in 1984, even though he didn’t make it. Godspeed, John Glenn.

Whom would you choose?

 

35 thoughts on “Gender aside, who would YOU rather see on the $20 bill?”

  1. Kathryn Fenner

    Yeah, I know you don’t like “identity politics”–being a white male Christian and all. All the faces on bills are white males. Women are only on the never used dollar coin. Surely we can include at least one?
    I’m partial to Eleanor Roosevelt.

    2. Brad Warthen Post author

      And… who would be your Top Five? It can be all women, if you believe the top five people deserving such an honor to be five women. But I’m curious to know whom people would choose if they didn’t limit it to one group or another. Because I find that more interesting.

      If I DID try to compile a Top Five Women list, Abigail Adams would probably be on it…

      1. Kathryn Fenner

        Top five:
        Eleanor Roosevelt
        Sandra Day O’Connor
        FDR
        MLK
        John Marshall, for Marbury v Madison

        2. Bryan Caskey

          Putting John Marshall on there isn’t a bad idea. I never really thought of putting a jurist on currency.

          Harriet Tubman was truly a bad-ass, though. She definitely has the “right stuff”. She’s probably the most deserving.

          2. bud

            Damn! I agree with Bryan. Harriet Tubman is by far my top pick. Then perhaps one of the great inventors, probably Thomas Edison.

              1. Norm Ivey

                Edison is undeserving of both the $20.00 and of the title scientist.

                If we were to go with a scientist, Jonas Salk comes to mind first.

  2. Phillip

    Other countries put artists (visual artists, musicians, etc.) on their paper money. Why not us?

    How about Georgia O’Keeffe?

    2. Brad Warthen Post author

      How about if we compromise and go with John Singer Sargent?

      But seriously, if I were to go with anyone from the arts, Mark Twain would be way, way out ahead of anybody else.

      That said, I wouldn’t go with anyone from the arts, as much as I love the arts.

      I mean, you go with someone from the arts, and then you’ve got the Chamber of Commerce wanting to go with some big business type. Cornelius Vanberbilt? Bill Gates? J.P. Morgan? I don’t think so…

          1. Brad Warthen Post author

            No, no, no.

            Elvis was the prototypical American, the unaffected, natural, American Adam, rising up from the Mississippi delta. A force of nature.

            So much of the best and worst of our culture was embodied by Elvis. Quintessentially American.

            1. Brad Warthen Post author

              Elvis is to our pop culture what Huck Finn is to our literature.

              You might say, “but he was just doing what black men had done before,” but I could answer with “where would Huck have been without Jim?” Huck is still the central figure in the most American of novels.

      3. Kathryn Fenner

        And the white male privilege contingent is heard from….

        Steve Jobs > Bill Gates + already dead

        1. Brad Warthen Post author

          I’m confused. Aren’t both of them white males?

          In any case, while some (not I) would say the business of America is business, I was offering those as examples of people I would NOT go for. I was saying, open it up to artists, and why not business leaders?

          We have enough to choose from with the political leaders who have shaped our history, from Washington to Tubman…

  5. Bill

    When I think of great Americans,no politicians come to mind,no matter how far back they go.I don’t romanticize them.I’ll go with,John Coltrane,Walt Whitman,Bob Dylan,Aaron Copland and Harper Lee.

    That said,politicians and money are hard to separate…

  6. bud

    Here’s a novel idea. Put two people on a single bill. The Wright Brothers would do nicely.

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