Wednesday, April 27, 2016


Many, many Black History Months ago, when my son Tex was in third grade, Harriet Tubman was the subject of a “module,” (or whatever they call them) in his history class.  It was a lengthy module.  He was required to study the adventures of Ms. Tubman and construct a time-line of her life.  Tex is not a complainer, but wife and self could not help but notice he was not enjoying the module.  I can’t say exactly what it was that annoyed him about the project because he is not the sort to discuss these occasional disturbances to his fundamental sang-froid, but suffice it to say that Sandy and I were careful not to use the words “Harriet” or “Tubman” or “Harriet Tubman” around him for quite a while.  A few days ago, when I mentioned the Tubman-for-Jackson currency swap in a phone conversation, icicles began forming on the telephone I was holding.  I had tried to make a little joke about Harriet Tubman.  But apparently, it’s still too soon.

So we have strong feelings about Harriet Tubman in our family.  Personally, I like her.  She’s mostly known for helping slaves to escape the South via the Underground Railroad, and God bless her for it, but there were many people who did that perilous work and she was far from the most prominent.  Much more impressive, I think, was her work as a spy for the Union during the Civil War.

The job was not less dangerous than helping slaves to freedom, and she was apparently extraordinarily good at it.  Her sources, of course, were blacks living in the Confederacy who knew, through their work for their masters, what the plans were, where troops and supplies were being moved, and so on.  Though they would be reluctant to risk their lives sharing that information with a white spy who had snuck across enemy lines from the North, they trusted Harriet Tubman.  Not only was she black, but they knew who she was and what she had done.  To most white southerners, she was just some anonymous colored woman, so she was usually able to pass unnoticed by the authorities.  Some have argued she was the most valuable intelligence asset the North had during the war.
In addition, she was a devout Christian woman her whole life and she always carried a gun.  I mean, what’s not to like?

And Andrew Jackson?  Well, he won the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, so he was a genuine war hero, and he was a popular legislator in the House and the Senate, and he became the seventh president, and he owned hundreds of slaves and he founded the Democratic Party (the party of slavery).  So he’s a mixed bag at best.  I hate it when people in the past are judged by modern standards, so let’s not do that, but does he really deserve to be on the twenty?  I mean, forget about Harriet Tubman for a minute.  I can think of half a dozen old dead white guys I’d rather see on that bill.  Why not John Adams?  Why not Thomas Paine?

Let’s be clear.  The decision to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman is solely based in political correctness.  For the Obama Administration, this is about getting rid of an ODWG and putting a righteous sister on some money.  In fact, however, they chose the correct ODWG and the correct sister.  I assume it was an accident, actually.  I assume it was done because Obama’s crew doesn’t know much about history.  If they did, they would never have picked an armed, Republican, devout Christian to replace the founder of the Democratic Party.  But in spite of themselves, they got it right.

The problem, however, is not this Tubman-for-Jackson switcheroo.  It’s that Obama wants to get all the ODWGs off the money and replace them with representatives of modern victim groups.  Jackson, however, is the low-hanging fruit of the ODWGs; there will be some serious bitching (at least from me), if they try to remove any of the others.

Washington and Lincoln?  No way.  Jefferson?  Well, Jefferson certainly has his detractors, but his founding father cred is untouchable.  He did write the Declaration of Independence, after all, and more than doubled the size of the country with the Louisiana Purchase.  Then there’s Alexander Hamilton, who started the mint and the national bank and wrote most of the Federalist Papers and now stars in his own hip-hop musical on Broadway.  And Ben Franklin?  Nobody will take old Ben off the hundred.  I mean, it wouldn’t be a Benjamin any more.  Even the lefties like him because they think he was an atheist.

All of which brings us to Ulysses S. Grant.  And let’s face it.  He was not a founding father, he was born way too late to fight the Revolutionary War, and he had no role in building the fledgling republic.  Nevertheless, the $50 bill is the coolest-looking currency we have.  Grant looks like a general, a winner, and a tough SOB.  Grant, with his steely eyes and a half-smile pushing through that bushy beard, is just about the manliest man we have on our money.  He looks like he just kicked Robert E. Lee’s butt halfway to Appomattox Courthouse.  I always use fifties when I’m buying my flame-throwers, Tennessee whiskey, chain saws and other manly stuff.
I’d hate to see him replaced by Margaret Sanger.