Why yes, I am a coin collector. Not that I’ve acquired a new coin in 50 years. But being a coin collector is a permanent condition, like being a marine. And I still have my pathetic childhood collection of Morgan silver dollars and a fine 1883 “no cents” Liberty nickel, which I can happily expound upon: a Roman numeral “V” on the reverse, but no “cents,” so fraudsters would gold plate the nickels and pass them off as $5 gold pieces.
Scary to consider how much numismatic minutia I jammed into my head between the ages of 10 and 15; even scarier to recognize how much is still there.
For instance, I don’t have to check to know with 100% certainty that the Lincoln penny was introduced in 1909 to mark the centennial of the 16th president’s birth, replacing the far prettier Indian Head Penny. Or that it originally had sheaves of wheat and a bold ONE CENT on the back. Replaced in 1959 with the Lincoln Memorial.
Forget the design. It became clear long ago we shouldn’t have pennies at all. The Lincoln cent became a rebuke. A symbol of inertia, aversion to change, everything wrong in our country. Address climate change? We can’t even get rid of the penny. Civilized countries — Canada, Australia, Britain — ditched theirs decades back.
Only in America do we stick with a coin that costs more than three times as much to make than it is worth, not that people spend them much. I wouldn’t bend over to pick up a penny. Would you?
So when Donald Trump paused from vandalizing our government Sunday to kill the penny, it took my breath away. It’s a … good idea — no, a great idea. Who uses coinage of any kind? Or cash, for that matter? About time. Bravo, Mr. President! And I have to say that out loud because the liberal superpower — and curse — is we approach situations rationally and can find value even in those we oppose. This isn’t the first accomplishment for Trump — he also fast-tracked the vaccine against COVID after ignoring the pandemic.
That said, we don’t want to make too much of results while ignoring method. If somebody breaks into your house and washes the dishes, it’s still a crime. They could steal stuff next time. Given the blizzard of executive orders of questionable legality pouring from the Oval Office, odds are one or two will resonate with most everybody. We are still hurtling toward the abyss. There are too many Americans willing to live in a country where one man is above the law. If he were Donald the Just, issuing commands steeped in the wisdom of Solomon — spoiler alert, he ain’t — I’d still be uncomfortable with the change to a country that used to have a powerful Congress and respected courts and unquestioned elections.
Still. It’s a healthy exercise to think positively, even for a moment, about a generally loathsome person. This reminds me of when I was researching Henry Ford a few years ago. You might think of him as the genius who created the Model T and the assembly line, and he was. But Ford was also driven nuts by wealth and success — it didn’t start with Elon Musk — and lurched onto the international stage, trying to end the First World War by sponsoring a voyage of peace activists to Europe and becoming a roaring antisemite.
As bad as it is to admire Hitler, Ford was worse: Hitler admired him. He’s the only American mentioned by name in Mein Kampf, where he is called out as our nation’s “single great man” for his courageous stance against the Jews.
“I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration,” Hitler once said.
So, Henry Ford, not a good guy.
Then I came across a story where Sandy, the dog in the “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip, goes missing. And Ford — somewhat in the way Trump fires off late-night tweets — sent a telegram to the cartoonist, Harold Gray: “Please find Sandy for us. We are all concerned.”
Awww, right? So maybe not such a bad guy, right?
Wrong. First, the story is interesting if true, as we newsmen say. Much as I like it, I have my doubts. There doesn’t seem to be a photo of the telegram.
Second, concern for an imaginary dog doesn’t outweigh encouraging Hitler. The downside of seeing the humanity in everyone is that you, ah, see the humanity in everyone. I wish our president could do the same. Maybe then he wouldn’t be trying to unconstitutionally spike birthright citizenship. A billion dollars of bigotry isn’t balanced by a penny’s worth of progress. At least, not for very long.
