20 April 2016

Put Frances Perkins on the $20 bill, not Harriet Tubman

President Andrew Jackson looked like a president, handsome with a full head of silver hair. He opposed nullification and secession. He also owned slaves and shot Indians, activities that appall today’s sensibilities. In the Democratic Party, he’s persona non grata. Jefferson-Jackson dinners are close to extinct.

Jackson’s looking like a president is why he’s on our $20 federal reserve note. His slave holding and shooting Indians is why he’ll be replaced on the twenty. Today, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced Jackson’s mug will be replaced by Harriet Tubman’s. A union spy during the Civil War, Tubman is a civil rights hero to many.

But if a woman must be on the twenty — and I’m not convinced that one must — I’d choose Franklin Roosevelt’s labor secretary, Frances Perkins, who served 12 years in the job and without whom Social Security might never have become law. Only one person, FDR himself, was more important to the passage of the Social Security Act. She did far more than Tubman to make America a better place, and ought to be honored first.