[rtpoe]

A couple of months ago, some people noted that the US had never really put a woman on its money. True, there was Susan B. Anthony and a representation of Sacagawea on dollar coins - but we know how well that turned out. A petition was started to get Andrew Jackson off the $20, and replaced with a woman of historical significance in time for the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment (the one that gave women the right to vote).

Their choice, based on a popular poll, was Harriet Tubman. Earlier this week, the Treasury said, "Thank you, but we REALLY need to redesign the $10 bill first. It's completely out of date when it comes to security features. But we'd still like your input."

So they put up a website: http://thenew10.treasury.gov/

I've been commenting on this as soon as I heard of the proposal. If the intent is really to commemorate the 19th Amendment, the one giving women the vote, then there's only one person they can go with.

Born in 1885, Alice Paul earned a Master's Degree in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania and went to England to continue her studies. There, she met suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, and found her calling. She joined their fight, learned their tactics, and did time in London jails for her trouble. She carried their torch to the US when she returned in 1910. Peaceful protests, like parades and picketing the White House, led to multiple arrests and prison sentences - and a lot of press coverage. She endured abuse from bystanders at her demonstrations as well as the police and her jailers. Her continued "in your face" protests led directly to the House of Representatives passing a women's suffrage amendment in 1918, and the Senate doing the same the next year. The Nineteenth Amendment to the USA Constitution was ratified in August 1920.

Paul didn't rest on that laurel. In 1923, she drafted an Equal Rights Amendment and continued to fight for it through the decades to follow. She was a key figure in getting protection for women included in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Only a debilitating stroke in 1974 stopped her activism. She died in 1977.

Sadly, it seems, most people think Women's Rights issues only started to matter in the late 1960s - well past Paul's era of influence. So she is forgotten by the general public. She did get put on a $10 gold coin in 2012 - but who sees those other than collectors?

[pedonbio]

Thank you, rtpoe.

My choice would be Jeannette Rankin, en.wikipedia.org/?title=Jeannette_Rankin

She was the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress, a Republican and a pacifist.

[Soflobro]

Myabe they should make multiple iterations of the $10 to include multiple women.

[TheZookie007]

You make a good case for Alice Paul, rtpoe. I say, put her on the $10 bill, and put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill also.

[solvegas]

Why kick out the first and perhaps  the best Secretary of the Treasury off the $10 bill ? Hamilton not only was one of the original Founding Fathers but a truly remarkable self made man. He was an immigrant of west indian origin, a bastard ch1ld in the days when that was greatly disapproved of ( unlike today ) who rose from his very poor beginnings to be one of The Federalist papers editors and author, who hated slavery and hoped for its disappearance, who paid off the Revolutionary War debt and established the financial foundation  that turned a small republic clinging precariously to the Atlantic Ocean coast into a world colossus. Or Andrew Jackson. After all, if he had not won the Battle of New Orleans in January of 1815, the British would have cut the Mississippi River away from the US and the westward expansion would have not occurred. Yes, he did evil when in 1830 he signed the removal act which forced several indian nations to be relocated to what is now Oklahoma but as its been said, him without sin should cast the first stone. Jackson hated the British and the red man because they slaughtered his family in front of his eyes when he was a boy during the Revolutionary War. Like many men, he could not overcome his grief and when he had a chance he did wrong. Nevertheless, he was the first president to be a man of the west and overall did well as President. My solution is simple. Bring back the $500.00 bill. Back in the 60's they stopped printing larger bills than $100 because of the drug war. Most large bills were actually used for intra-governmental accounting and transfers but they were afraid organized crime would counterfeit the large bills or used them for money laundering. But anyone who remembers when coin machines dispensed ten cent Snicker bars can tell you that $100 ain't what it used to be. The Europeans have a 500 Euro bill so why not us ? No need to anger / dismay anyone by removing a Founding Father from currency and the ladies would be happy with a bigger bill than any of the guys. Win - win. 

[Palomine]

From what I heard this morning, they're not removing Andrew Jackson.

[TheZookie007]

Really? Typical...

[pedonbio]

The U.S. quit printing high-denomination bills shortly after I was born (1945), but they weren't actively removed from circulation until 1969, 'cuz, you know, removing those bills from circulation sho-nuff stopped the drug trade, didn't it?

It's kinda fun to look up the Wikipedia article on large-denomination bills, because, while most were green, there was a strong run of yellow bills and a lesser run of red bills.

And most everybody got their pictures on those. Even Salmon P. Chase.

[prinz]

From what I heard this morning, they're not removing Andrew Jackson.

That is too Bad.. My wife has Cherokee in her blood line . Her family hates the man !

[TheZookie007]

That is too Bad.. My wife has Cherokee in her blood line . Her family hates the man !

I don't blame them. Dude was instrumental in the genocide of Native Americans on the continent.

[Palomine]

I don't blame them. Dude was instrumental in the genocide of Native Americans on the continent.

[superficial]Be that as it may, from what evidence we have, relatively speaking, he was among the better-looking Founding Fathers, not that that's saying all that much. [/superficial]

[CarlTL]

[superficial]Be that as it may, from what evidence we have, relatively speaking, he was among the better-looking Founding Fathers, not that that's saying all that much. [/superficial]

He wasn't exactly a founding father...

[rtpoe]

Solvegas, I too would like to see Hamilton stay on the $10. He was everything you stated, and is right there with Benjamin Franklin as the two most important non-President "founding fathers". Had he not gotten into that duel with Burr...

But it so happens that the Treasury has been working on a redesign of the $10 since 2013 (to bring it up to date with the latest needs, like Braille dots for the blind), so it's just a heck of a lot more practical to put a new face on it at the same time.

Getting rid of Jackson is just a bit of over-PC. "He was mean to the native Americans" when being mean to them was somewhat acceptable (I concede that he did go overboard - but I have yet to hear of anyone at the time saying anything like "Whoa, General! That's a bit too much!"). "He owned slaves!" So did a lot of other people, since it was LEGAL at the time. "He killed the Second Bank of the US, and set up the conditions that led to the Panic of 1837!" Uhhh.... This takes a bit of actual reading. The Bank was, in practice, a tool of the "One Percent" of the era. And the Panic was largely the result of the banks defeating Jackson's efforts to regulate them. They continued to make bad loans, so when the land speculation bubble collapsed....(Sound familiar?). Jackson was, if anything, a Populist. He was our first President who was not from the Virginia-Massachusetts elite - and that was reflected in his economic policies.

[pedonbio]

That is too Bad.. My wife has Cherokee in her blood line . Her family hates the man !

Have you noticed, prinz, that we as a society keep telling the "good" stories? George Washington died a bitter and frustrated man because of what he considered his greatest failure--The mistreatment of Natives east of the Mississippi. He, Jefferson, and Henry Knox all worked very hard in the early 1790s to come up with a way to accommodate the Eastern tribes. The biggest problem was that, outside of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, our European ancestors had figured out that the Kings of England had never recognized the tribes' land tenure and white folks could just take the land, register it, and, if the Natives got pesky, just kill them. Washington, Knox, and Jefferson put together the Treaty of New York between 1789 and 1790 with the Creeks (neighbors to the Cherokee) and intended for it to serve as a model for the Eastern tribes. Whites immediately violated the treaty, took the land, and killed some people.

Alexander McGillivray*, leader of the Creeks, tried unsuccessfully to hold back the river of white settlers, and the American military was both inadequate and unmotivated to stop them.

It was pretty much downhill from there; Jackson came along at the end. Son-of-a-bitch that he was, for him to have protected the remaining Cherokee would have been heroic and, despite American pretensions, we do not want heroic presidents.

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*--Why was a Scot the leader of a tribe of Natives in Alabama? It's an interesting story.

[pedonbio]

Let us not forget that Jackson's biggest and most lasting contribution was white male voting. As backward as that seems now, prior to Jackson's leading his party to end limitations on voting after 1820, only a relative handful of Americans could vote. The best example is that in the presidential election of 1820, about 350,000 votes were cast. In 1824 more than 1,100,000 were cast.

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And if we're going to talk about Hamilton, why not consider Albert Gallatin? Not only was he a better economist than Hamilton, he stayed out of duels and lived 40 years longer.