See? Jack Lew was playing a deep game. Float the idea that Alexander Hamilton gets dropped from the $10 bill, only to pave the way for Andrew Jackson to be demoted to the back of the $20 bill. But I have to agree: better Jackson than Hamilton. Not sure that President Jackson would have been so keen to be on paper money anyway.

Time to change the designs, I figure. The last time any portrait changes happened was in my grandparents’ time, not counting the fairly recent enlargement of the portraits (except for the $1 and $2 bills). Between 1914 and 1928, four portrait changes occurred: $10 — Andrew Jackson to Alexander Hamilton; $20 — Grover Cleveland to Andrew Jackson; $500 — John Marshall to William McKinley; and $1000 — Alexander Hamilton to Grover Cleveland. Practically musical chairs, those changes, and the last two are moot in any case.

Less attention has been paid to the upcoming changes in the $5 and $10 bill, probably because Hamilton and Lincoln are keeping their observe status. In fact, the buildings on the back are going to be the same as well: the Treasury Department on the $10 and the Lincoln Memorial on the $5.

The main difference is that people are being added with the buildings: Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul on the back of the $10, and Martin Luther King Jr., Marian Anderson, and Eleanor Roosevelt on the back of the $5.

Reasonable choices, I suppose, yet clearly the work of committees. I have to wonder when Teddy Roosevelt’s going to get his due on some bit of currency, besides his presidential dollar, which no one sees. The 100th anniversary of his death’s coming up, after all. Truman as well, for that matter. A Truman nickel and a TR quarter? Just a thought.

One more thing, not related to money: something to watch this San Jacinto Day. Actually, two more: something to watch on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s 90th birthday.