Let’s say they decide to redesign the money again (which they will in a few years), and determine that its a good idea to alter which presidents are on US currency. There are six bills ($1, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100) in general circulation.
Limiting yourself to 20th Century presidents, three GOP, three Democrats, who would you want to see on which bills?
$1 Richard Nixon
$2 George W. Bush, image of face ‘accidentally’ printed upside-down
$5 Clinton w/ Cigar
$7 Jimmy Carter
$10 Large Smiley Face
$20 Image left unintentionally blank
$50 Checkers the Dog
$100 Ben Stein
But seriously, I’d put McKinley, T. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Wilson, F. Roosevelt and Kennedy on the bills. No particular order, though I’d be partial to Wilson on the $20.
I know it’s a condition of the OP, but why limit it to presidents? One, other countries don’t limit their money to heads of state, and two, we don’t even limit our money to heads of state.
I’d put George Marshall and Jonas Salk ahead of all but the Roosevelts and perhaps Eisenhower (also limiting myself to those who have died, which is a pretty standard limitation).
How about putting famous industrialists?
People like Vanderbilt, Ford, DuPont, Carnagie, and of course John D. Rockefeller. The men who built the country up, who created great things, and accomplished great deeds.
Putting an ex-Nazi, however great his post-War achievements, on a US bill is impolitic.
“He aimed for the Moon, but sometimes he hit London” ya know.
Oooooooh! Ouch!
I am not even close to speaking reasonably about Nazis. I’m afraid my pacifist upbringing loses traction, suddenly.
Unfortunately, we aren’t given black-or-white evidence concerning individuals in Germany at that time.
I’m an ex-NASA type, and I’ve read biographies about Von Braun very, very carefully, I do not believe Von Braun was a bad person.
I could be wrong. I do know that he helped mankind (that’s all of us) reach the moon. I’ll stick with my recommendation.
I can undersand Von Braun may be controversial. Still I’d like to see a scientist/engineer or two. Here is a list of all physicists that appeared on currencies in various countries. I see Einstein has already made it, on an Israeli note.
OK, so the US does have Ben Franklin already, but he didn’t get there purely by his science work.
My old landlord in Kansas was former Military Intelligence during WWII. One of his jobs was rounding up “souveniers” from soldiers, like fine art looted from European museums. One other job was helping to collect German rocket scientists after the shooting stopped. (Collect the whole set! Seems there was lots of interest from many nations about getting a real rocket scientist to immigrate).
Anyway, my landlord said that this skinny “kid” shows up, claiming to be Werner Von Braun and wanting to go to the good-ol’ US of A. There was some scoffing like “yeah, sure you are” but they sent him back to the interviewers. The final decision of the interviewers was that even if he wasn’t Von Braun, we (the USA) still wanted him. Turns out it really was W. VonB.