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(March 3) -- Reviving a controversy about which American historical figures deserve to be honored on the nation's currency, a North Carolina congressman is proposing replacing a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill with one of conservative icon Ronald Reagan.
"President Reagan is indisputably one of the most transformative presidents of the 20th century," Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican, said in a letter to his fellow members of Congress. "Like President Roosevelt on the dime and President Kennedy on the half-dollar, President Reagan deserves a place of honor on our nation's currency."
This is not the first time McHenry has lobbied for Reagan to take Grant's coveted place. In 2005, McHenry introduced a bill in Congress calling for the switch. That measure never made it past the House Financial Services Committee.
Previous attempts were also made to have Reagan take over for Franklin Roosevelt on the dime, as well as to take Andrew Jackson's place on the $20 bill.
"I'm outraged," Joan Waugh, UCLA history professor and the author of "U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth," told AOL News. "I think it's a bad idea, and particularly troublesome coming from Southern Republicans."
The commanding general who led the North to victory in the Civil War, Grant was not a beloved figure in the Deep South, Waugh says. "But for the rest of the country, he was an incredibly popular two-term president."
In the years since his own two terms in office, Reagan has been honored in myriad ways. An airport, a freeway, an aircraft carrier and a federal building in Washington all bear his name. As 2011 will mark the 100th anniversary of Reagan's birth, admirers like McHenry are attempting to increase such formal praise.
In February, a bid to rename northern California's Mount Diablo after the 40th president, and the state's former governor, failed when the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors rejected the measure.
In a survey of historians conducted in 2009, C-SPAN found that Reagan ranked as the 10th most popular president, whereas Grant came in at 23rd.
Congressman Wants Reagan on $50 Bill
Mar 3, 2010 – 6:59 PM
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