Will There Be a Woman on our Currency? Perhaps So. Not Sure I Trust this Administration to Pick who it is…

The OTHER big news story this AM (besides TWO opponents for Del. Chris Peace) is the announcement that a woman will be on US currency for the first time since Martha Washington (a perfectly good choice if I might say so myself and better than some of the other names banded about such as Margaret Sanger or Eleanor Roosevelt) was on this one dollar silver certificate in 1891.

Here’s the story.

I did participate in the effort (by voting I am not important enough to be involved in this effort) by several to take former President Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill and replace him with a woman.  I thought removing Jackson was a good idea, given his treatment of the Native Americans and some of his other activities (he invaded north Florida and hanged two British citizens in violation of orders among other things).  I voted in the final ballot for Cherokee chief Wilma Mankiller.

But I am concerned.  Who might the Obama Administration select for the ten?  First, Alexander Hamilton, as much as I dislike his idea of the strong central government, was a brilliant Secretary of the Treasury.  He ought to be on the money.  (I understand Hamilton will be on the new ten in some way)  But the government is updating, not the twenty, but the ten and thus this is easiest to change.  Here’s CNN Money’s take on it.

[Treasury Secretary] Lew, who will make the final decision on who will grace the currency, is asking the public for help.

The department will launch a website, and is asking for input over social media with the hashtag #TheNew10.

What’s his criteria? Lew wants the next generation of U.S. currency to underscore the theme of American democracy. The portrait must also — by law — be of someone who is no longer living.

Unfortunately, we do not have a Madame Curie outside the world of politics suitable for paper money.  And I am not sure I am comfortable with the President’s idea of democracy.  I already try to spend fives with face down and I am afraid tens will be next.

But I could suggest a couple of names:

The first woman elected governor (Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming) or the first woman elected governor in her own right, a boyhood hero of mine (yes I had some strange heroes in my childhood – George Romney for example who was my governor when I lived in the Upper Peninsula) Connecticut Governor Ella Grasso, or why not Hattie Caraway of Arkansas – elected in January 1932 upon the death of her husband and dramatically “re-elected” in August 1932 primarily through the efforts of the Kingfish, Huey P. Long of neighboring Louisiana.

A gutsy choice that I would approve of would be the first woman elected to Congress, Jeanette Rankin of Montana.  Rankin had the fortune or misfortune to be elected in 1916 and one of her first votes was against the First World War (I agree!  The First World War was not necessary for us to fight and Wilsonian meddling after the War helped caused the Second World War.) and she was defeated.  Rankin returned to Congress in, you guessed it, 1940 and was the sole vote against US entry in the Second World War after Pearl Harbor (I would not have voted with her but you got to admire her guts) and was defeated again.

Another boyhood hero of mine is Rep. Shirley Chisholm of New York, who was also the first serious woman candidate for President in 1972.  (Boy, Sandy, you were a real dork as a kid, weren’t you?  Yes, I was although I did admire Muhammad Ali, Roman Gabriel and George Blanda, too!)  I would be thrilled to see Chisholm on the currency.

By the way, the first woman to receive an electoral vote for either President or Vice President was neither a Democrat nor a Republican:  It was Libertarian VP candidate Theodora “Tonie” Nathan in 1972.  She got a vote because a Virginia elector [Roger McBride, who was the 1976 LP Presidential standard-bearer] voted for the LP – John Hospers and Nathan – and Nathan is also the first Jewish electoral vote winner and to even run for VP.

Finally, outside the world of politics, we have our nation’s first professional astronomer:  Maria Mitchell.  Here is her bio from the Maria Mitchell Association.  Mitchell discovered a comet, was a professor of astronomy at Vassar College and popularized astronomy in the United States.

My vote’s for Mitchell!  Second would be either Rankin or Chisholm or perhaps Grasso.