Supporters want Reagan's face on nation's currency

By Jim Abrams
The Associated Press

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Getting their hero's face on the dime may be easier than other goals, such as seeing it etched on Mount Rushmore, but the idea still will be resisted by Democrats defending their own icon, FDR.

Honoring the late president with new coins or paper money is only one of several ideas being advanced by Reagan admirers: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has suggested legislation to rename the Pentagon the Ronald Reagan National Defense Building.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., a speechwriter in the Reagan White House, plans to introduce a bill to put Reagan on the $20 bill, replacing another Democrat, Andrew Jackson.

That would join a previous proposal, by Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., for dimes bearing the likeness of Reagan.

The office of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would pursue an idea he has pushed for several years: placing Reagan on the $10 bill, which now bears the visage of Hamilton, the first Treasury secretary.

Chris Butler of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, which has the goal of seeing a Reagan commemoration in every American county, said its legislative priority is the $10 bill. He noted that money can be changed administratively without congressional action, and suggested that Reagan dimes could join, rather than replace, FDR dimes.

The Treasury secretary can change the design of coins, usually after consulting Congress, but spokeswoman Anne Womack Kolton said, "We believe it is premature at this point to discuss any possible changes to the currency."

Replacing FDR would not happen without a battle. Last November, on the same day Souder introduced his Reagan dime bill, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., proposed a resolution affirming support of the FDR dime. More than half the House Democrats joined him as co-sponsors.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said yesterday a decision on a $10 Reagan note should be left to historians, adding that "the best tribute we could pay to him" would be fully funding research into Alzheimer's, the disease that afflicted Reagan the last decade of his life.

Reagan's wife, Nancy, has also voiced opposition to a new dime. Souder last December praised the "humble nature" of her comments but said he would continue to promote his bill, which has the support of GOP leaders.
 
Butler, whose group is a wing of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, pointed out that coins bearing the likeness of FDR and John F. Kennedy appeared within a year of their deaths. The Roosevelt dime came out in 1946, in part commemorating his support for the March of Dimes campaign to fight polio.

Besides paper and metal, Reagan advocates have long pushed to see their champion honored more widely in stone. Butler said there are 54 highways, schools, post offices and other memorials to Reagan around the country, but that pales in comparison with the more than 600 for Kennedy and more than 800 for Martin Luther King Jr.

Up to now, the biggest victories have been the renaming of Washington's National Airport after the 40th president and the opening in Washington of the Ronald Reagan Building, the second-largest government office building after the Pentagon. Last year the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was commissioned.

Still in the works is the idea of a monument on the National Mall in Washington, deterred by a law — signed by Reagan — that bars new monuments until a person has been dead 25 years.