# Kicking our Brother off the $20!



## Willaim Perkins (May 24, 2015)

I'm not sure how many of you have paid any attention to the quiet movement to replace Bro. Jackson in the twenty, but I am against it.  Put a woman on there, no particular reason other than there isn't.  Such actions reminds me of the booby prize and is an insult to the entire gender.  Then why the twenty?  Pres. Jefferson is on the $2 bill and the nickel and his treatment of his slave Sally Hemings would be my choice.
Speak up Brethren!  When it comes to pass, like the Presidential dollar coins, I will not accept them.


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## dfreybur (May 24, 2015)

I favor the advice of our Worshipful Brother George Washington on this matter - No hero worship should appear at all on our currency.  Introducing images of historical humans on the paper currency near the Civil War was a mistake that should never have happened.  Introducing images of dead Presidents on our coinage starting with Lincoln on the Cent in 1909 was a mistake and should never have happened.

Right now only one denomination of US currency approaches the standard set by Washington - The Sacajawea dollar coin.  As no historical image of her exists it is a symbolic.  I vastly prefer the symbolic images of Liberty used originally.  I especially like the very beautiful images used on the coinage from the era of Brother Teddy Roosevelt's era.

To me any replacement of currency shouldn't have ANY historical person on it.


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## Ripcord22A (May 24, 2015)

Brother Dfreybur can i ask why?


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## Morris (May 24, 2015)

I feel pretty confident that he would not want to be on any U.S. Federal money


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## dfreybur (May 25, 2015)

Brother JD Madsen,

Why do I agree with George Washington's advice to never put heroes on the currency or why did he give that advice in the first place?  My bias is I am agreeing with my interpretation of what he meant.  What's the fun in just taking someones advice unless you've thought it through and have your own reasons after all.

Washington had just been through a war to throw off the King's rule.  The King and previous generations of the King's family appeared on the currency.  The first stage of reasoning is that the US had thrown off rule by others and instituted a system without patents of nobility.  As such we shouldn't have external people on our currency.  I've never gotten why the Canadian currency has an image of the Queen because of this line of reasoning.

There is also the legend that Washington had been offered kingship three times and turned the offers down.  "He who governs least governs best".  I don't know if the story is apocryphal because the exact same story is told about Julius Caesar yet Octavius Caesar had become Emperor.  It is certain that Washington and all of the other founding fathers of the US republic studied Roman history extensively.  The Romans had been under the rule of the Etruscan kings for centuries and had eventually thrown them off.  Maybe Julius when offered kingship thought in terms of the external rule by the Etruscan kings.  Maybe Julius thought in terms of preserving the liberty Rome had won and the success Rome had seen under that liberty.  What Julius could not know was that he adopted son Octavius would become Emperor.

Washington did know that continuation of Roman history and he wanted no part of empire.  He'd seen the British Empire growing and he'd fought a war to exit their dominion.  He wanted something else.  Maybe he dreamed like Jefferson of a continent of small republics not forming an empire rather like the together but not united Greek states of the Greek Golden Age.  Maybe he dreamed of a parallel with the history of the Roman Republic expanding across the continent in what would be called the Manifest Destiny of the US.

Either way Washington knew the Roman Republic had evolved into the Roman Empire at the cost of liberty.  He seems to have wanted to take a different path.  One of the methods the triumvirates had used to gain power and convert the Republic to the Empire had been hero worship including images on the currency.  Washington also knew that later in the Empire both generals and senators he issued currency with their own images contributing to the decline or Rome.

The use of heroes on the currency has a definite history.  This is the part of the history that I see and why I oppose it on our currency even though it has been on the paper currency since the time of my great-great-grandfathers and even though it has been on the coins since my grandfather was in school shortly before he enlisted to serve in WWI.  I think this is why George Washington opposed it.

Historically the US was in expansion similar to the Roman Republic up until the end of the Spanish American War or maybe until the end of WWI.  Historically the US exited an expansionist strategy about that time and also put images of historical heroes on the currency at that same time.  It appears to parallel the Roman transition from Republic to Empire.  Sure enough since then the US has helped stop the expansion of several other empires in several other wars.  The transition to empire has not been as fast as happened in Rome but it is following a parallel path.

As I think Washington wanted I would rather the US not maintain itself as an empire of the Roman sort.  I want a different historical parallel to emerge.  Some sort of combination of one among many leading countries as with the military of post WWII British Empire plus one among many leading countries as with the business of post WWII Japan plus one among many leading countries as with the science of post Cold War Switzerland.


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## Ripcord22A (May 25, 2015)

I guess in dont see the problem with putting historical figures on our money....i see the correlation that you made with Rome but i don't think Americans fit that.....no living person has ever been on our money....save Willam J Clinton on the 3$ bill..lol


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## Companion Joe (May 25, 2015)

Brethren,
Please, contact your senators and local congressman to let them we do not want this change. I have done this and spread the word across our state about this travesty.

It doesn't matter who they want to put on the $20; it matters that they want to take Andrew Jackson off it. Andrew Jackson was a two-time Grand Master of Tennessee, and he sat in my lodge on more than one occasion. If PC people demand someone's image on currency, take the $10 or the $50. Hamilton wasn't even born in this country, and he suffered the ignominy of being killed in a duel with the vice president. Grant is known to have one of the most corrupt presidencies in the history of our country. 

Thank you.


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## Morris (May 26, 2015)

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/how-hard-would-it-be-to-change-the-20.html

Descent article on the subject.  Could have more info on the process though.


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## dfreybur (May 26, 2015)

The US currency system needs a complete overhaul.

Think about this - Just before the Civil War the US Mint stopped pressing half cents because there were almost no products one could buy with a half cent coin.  They were no longer worth minting.  If you run inflation forward since that time the US Mint should no longer even be pressing quarters by that same value measurement, though gum balls have continued to shrink with inflation to match the shrinking value of the quarter.  Yet cents are still pressed.  It makes no sense.  Even nickels are now worth more as melted metal than they are as currency.

When Canada stopped printing one dollar bills and increased the pressing of one dollar coins everyone predicted disaster but in under a year no one wanted a one dollar paper bill in change any more.  It turned out that in spite of the common opinion at the time one dollar coins were more convenient than one dollar paper bills.  In the US every vending machine capable of counting change made since 1982 has been able to handle dollar coins, so reason might dictate the same should happen in the US in spite of the emotional attachment to the paper one dollar bill.  But something else has happened since then.  Inflation has pulled the vale of the dollar so low vending machines now need to process five dollar bills or even higher denominations.  The one dollar coin would no longer being a winning strategy but not because of the added pragmatic convenience that happened in Canada.  It's no longer a winning strategy because vending machines are going electronic and because inflation eroded the value of a dollar.

I'd love for the currency to be re-issued without historical humans, but the reason I don't think we're ready has nothing to do with that bit of history and the advice of George Washington.  The reason is the conversion to electronic is steadily making the currency obsolete.

I like to buy fancy coffee at Starbucks but I want to limit how much money I spend there.  So when I get home at night I take my change out of my pockets.  The quarters I put in a stack.  The other coins I put in a jar.  When the stack of quarters gets big enough I get that fancy Starbucks coffee plus tip.  When the jar fills it goes to Christmas gifts.  I spend cash less and less so that system has me getting less and less Starbucks.  Not a problem.  Also for the last very many years the jar has contributed a rapidly dropping portion of of gift budget.  It never did supply the whole budget but this year it was not worth mixing the funds into our Christmas budget.

Both the coins and the paper currency are receding in the rear view mirror into quaintness.  They will be around a long time but the combination of inflation and electronic transactions makes them less and less relevant.  It is no longer fiscally responsible to reissue a corrected currency generation.


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## cacarter (May 26, 2015)

Willaim Perkins said:


> When it comes to pass, like the Presidential dollar coins, I will not accept them.



Why don't you accept presidential dollar coins?


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## Willaim Perkins (May 26, 2015)

cacarter said:


> Why don't you accept presidential dollar coins?


The slugs are stamped out at Posco (Pohang Steel Co.) in ROK, and shipped over here for minting.


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## Willaim Perkins (May 26, 2015)

dfreybur said:


> The US currency system needs a complete overhaul.
> 
> Think about this - Just before the Civil War the US Mint stopped pressing half cents because there were almost no products one could buy with a half cent coin.  They were no longer worth minting.  If you run inflation forward since that time the US Mint should no longer even be pressing quarters by that same value measurement, though gum balls have continued to shrink with inflation to match the shrinking value of the quarter.  Yet cents are still pressed.  It makes no sense.  Even nickels are now worth more as melted metal than they are as currency.
> 
> ...


I am a Biilasaurs, I like paper money and do not have a debit card, nor do I regularly carry a credit card.  I also don't have a cell phone and like my VHS.


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## cacarter (May 27, 2015)

Willaim Perkins said:


> The slugs are stamped out at Posco (Pohang Steel Co.) in ROK, and shipped over here for minting.


Interesting.  Do you have a source for that? I've been unable to find anything in my google searches and would be interested to read about it.


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## cacarter (May 27, 2015)

Morris said:


> I feel pretty confident that he would not want to be on any U.S. Federal money



The great irony of the guy who hated a centralized bank and opposed paper money or soft money of any kind.

http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_classroom/classroom_documents-1832.html

http://www.ushistory.org/us/24d.asp


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## Willaim Perkins (May 27, 2015)

cacarter said:


> Interesting.  Do you have a source for that? I've been unable to find anything in my google searches and would be interested to read about it.


Yes the employees of the former Olin Brass Mill in E. Alton.  Also a member of our VFW, his son sent him a couple of them blanks he got while stationed over there.  had the quality of the metal (lack of) checked out by a professor at SIUE. he could confirm the it was not of the quality of the Saccageweea dollars and contained "...questionable elements and minerals not native to North America."


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## Ripcord22A (May 27, 2015)

I had 2 Google what presidential dollar coins were.  I've never seen one


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## Browncoat (May 28, 2015)

As long as it's still worth $20, I could care less whose face is on it.


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## cacarter (May 28, 2015)

Willaim Perkins said:


> Yes the employees of the former Olin Brass Mill in E. Alton.  Also a member of our VFW, his son sent him a couple of them blanks he got while stationed over there.  had the quality of the metal (lack of) checked out by a professor at SIUE. he could confirm the it was not of the quality of the Saccageweea dollars and contained "...questionable elements and minerals not native to North America."



Interesting. Any documented/published sources?


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## Willaim Perkins (May 28, 2015)

cacarter said:


> Interesting. Any documented/published sources?


None that I'm aware of, just what I know first hand and the Brass Mill be sold off.


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## Morris (Jun 18, 2015)

If you've seen the news today it was announced it will be Hamilton on the Ten who will be replaced by a woman in 2020. 

I was hoping for MLK myself.


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## Morris (Jun 18, 2015)

http://wapo.st/1J52INk


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## Willaim Perkins (Jun 19, 2015)

Morris said:


> If you've seen the news today it was announced it will be Hamilton on the Ten who will be replaced by a woman in 2020.
> 
> I was hoping for MLK myself.


I didn't catch the news, has a 3rd last night and when I got home went to bed.  thanks for the info.  I was thinking of MLK on another coin.  Create a $5 coin.  Put him on one side and Malcolm X on the other.  The coin would have a hole in the center.  Reasons: bother were men of their respective faiths and would therefore be against gambling (hard to gamble with a 2-headedcoin), Malcolm X said his x was for the loss of their identity over centuries of slavery (thus the hole), and the hole would aid the visually impaired.


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## Warrior1256 (Oct 22, 2015)

Companion Joe said:


> Brethren,
> Please, contact your senators and local congressman to let them we do not want this change. I have done this and spread the word across our state about this travesty.


I will do this brother.


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