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Monday, September 19, 2005

House GOPer: Replace Grant with Reagan on $50 Bill

As Aaron Blake reports for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, one conservative Republican in the House of Representatives is pushing forward new legislation that would wipe Ulysses S. Grant off of the $50 bill and replace him with Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan has an airport, an aircraft carrier and buildings around the nation named for him, but his admirers aren't through. As the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the Reagan Revolution approaches, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., is proposing legislation to put the late president on the $50 bill.

[...]

The faces on Federal Reserve notes haven't changed since they were standardized in 1929.

The current $50 bill honoree, Ulysses S. Grant, was plagued by scandal during his presidency. He is best known for his role as chief Union general in the Civil War. But Grant scholar Marie Kelsey of the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth says Grant's reputation has stood the test of time, while Reagan is benefiting from an outpouring of nostalgia in the aftermath of his 2004 death.

"Grant is really, in my opinion, a far more important person than Reagan, considering that he saved the Union," said Kelsey, who has written a Grant bibliography due out at the end of the month.

Even in the weeks after Reagan died, in June 2004, an ABC News poll found that Americans decisively rejected subbing him for Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill or for Franklin D. Roosevelt on the dime.
To many Americans, Ronald Reagan was a great President. In the eyes of many, he helped lift America out of the morass of stagflation and expedited the peaceful end of the Cold War. But are either of these accomplishments (Reagan's role in which is still contentiously debated) really tantamount to saving the Union?
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