By Dan Sewell
CINCINNATI — Bugler, sound the charge! Folks in southern Ohio are mounting a counterattack against a congressional proposal to replace native son Ulysses S. Grant with Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill.
Politicians have passed resolutions, businesses have put up signs, letter-writing campaigns have begun, and, of course, a Facebook page has been created for the cause of leaving Grant’s image just as it is on the currency. A bill pending in the U.S. House seeks to replace Grant with Reagan, the late 40th president and conservative icon.
Grant’s backers will try to drum up more support today with speeches following a 21-gun salute at his birthplace in Point Pleasant, and Civil War reenactments in his nearby boyhood hometown of Georgetown, part of annual celebrations of his April 27, 1822, birthday.
“Don’t mess with Grant!” is the battle cry of Bob Proud, a commissioner in Clermont County, the county of Grant’s birth just east of Cincinnati. Commissioners in Clermont and Brown counties passed resolutions opposing the U.S. House bill.