Last month, I posted about the controversial plan by the
Obama Administration to remove the portrait of Alexander Hamilton from the $10
United States Federal Reserve Note and the ongoing movement to remove Andrew Jackson’s
image from the $20 bill.
In my post, The Obama
Administration’s Plan to Replace Alexander Hamilton’s Portrait on the $10 bill
is Divisive and Patronizing, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-obama-administrations-plan-to.html,
I mentioned Jackson ’s
mistreatment of certain Native Americans and ownership of slaves as the reasons
that some people, especially liberals, object to his portrait on the $20
bill. I wrote that by that reasoning,
Franklin Roosevelt’s portrait should be removed from the Dime because, as
President, the Democrat interred and otherwise violated the civil rights of many
American citizens and loyal permanent residents, without trial, on the sole
basis of national origin.
The current controversy over the
Confederate Battle Flag reminds me of an additional reason to remove Roosevelt’s
image from the Dime: Commander in Chief Roosevelt, even during the Second World
War, a time of great peril that necessitated unity among Americans, maintained
the racial segregation of the U.S.
military. The Continental Army under
George Washington during the American Revolution had been racially integrated,
but while the Confederate Army during the Civil War was racially integrated,
the Union Army was not. The U.S. military
remained racially segregated during the Spanish-American War and the First
World War. It was not until after the
Second World War, under President Harry Truman, that the American military was
racially integrated.
Surely, if at least certain people
have a new right not to be offended and thus to ban types of expressions by the
government or public officials they deem offensive, even if the reasons they
take offense are mistaken, as if they may insist that their interpretation of a
word, symbol or image of a person means only what they think it means instead
of its original intent, and if the Confederate Battle Flag is to be banned
because it offends those who associate it with racism and racial segregation,
then Roosevelt’s image would be even more offensive because it ought to remind everyone
of racial segregation in the military that even the Confederates did not
commit. Of course, most liberals are
probably not aware of this fact, but even if they were, their usual selective
indignation might cause them to excuse Roosevelt for his overall favored
policies, in contrast to how they regard Jackson, the Founding Fathers,
Christopher Columbus, and any other great figure in Western history with whom
they do not totally agree. Perhaps liberals
might even consider not judging historical figures apart from the standards of
the times in which they lived and instead give these figures credit for the
overall progress they achieved, in contrast to liberals’ current iconoclasm. It must be noted, however, that Roosevelt did not make significant progress on advancing
the equal treatment of blacks, in contrast to the Founders and others who are now
coming under attack by the liberal iconoclasts.
Roosevelt’s interments based upon national origin would be enough for
any liberal to object to honoring him publicly if he were anything less than a
liberal hero, but his racial segregation ought to force them to join with
conservatives in opposing such an honor for one who violated civil rights and
equality. Of course, consistency is hardly
the hallmark of liberalism.
As I have
noted in several posts, American coins or currency should not feature images of
people, except perhaps for the major Founding Fathers, as they should be
unifying, not divisive, which is why the Founders established the practice on
the first coins to feature only the allegorical female human figure of Liberty
and other symbols, instead of self-promoting portraits of current leaders or of
any other human. Featuring images of
humans creates controversy and also makes it difficult to maintain the custom
of changing coin or currency designs periodically, lest the admirers of the
person whose image is proposed to be replaced be offended. All too often, as in the case of the
Democratic Congress only a few months after Roosevelt’s death in 1945, images
are authorized to be placed on coins or currency out of emotions and
partisanship, long before presidential documents are publicized, including
those classified as “top secret,” to allow adequate historical research and well
before sufficient historical precedent can allow for proper consideration and
judgment about the individual to be honored.
If Roosevelt’s
image is not replaced with that of Liberty or
some appropriate symbol, then I suggest it be replaced with a portrait of James
Madison, the Father of the Constitution that Roosevelt
violated.
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