On October 1, 1957, America debuted its new official motto on paper currency for the first time. From that day forward, all American greenbacks would bear the phrase “In God We Trust.”
This wasn’t the first time American currency had borne this deistic declaration. It first appeared on the national scene in 1865 after a minister, distraught over the death and destruction being wrought in the Civil War, wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase and humbly requested that an affirmation of our nation’s faith be placed on our coinage. The minister appealed to Chase’s sense of posterity, asking “would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation?” Chase was moved by the minister’s letter, and after years of campaigning for the change he was successful in persuading Congress to pass an act placing the motto Chase himself had come up with - “In God We Trust” - on certain American coins.
The religious inscription didn’t go without controversy, and was nearly removed from American currency in the early 1900’s. President Theodore Roosevelt reportedly disliked the motto and campaigned to remove it, but upon meeting criticism from vocal religious groups he bowed to public pressure and restored its usage. By the 1950’s the motto was being used only on coins, but the Senate Banking Committee saw an opportunity to change that. With the costly process of updating the printing presses approaching, the committee opted to add the now century-old phrase to American paper bills. Congress even took it a step further and officially made “In God We Trust” the national motto of the United States of America.
Surprisingly, there was no great groundswell of emotion from either side of the issue. The New York Times reported the new national motto in a four sentence story in the 27th page of the Tuesday edition. Even once the switch was made to the new bills in October of 1957, the only coverage the paper of record granted was an article on page 36 which death mostly with the technology in the new printing dies, not discussing the societal impacts of placing religious phrases on national currency.
It would seem that “In God We Trust” was not so controversial when it was added to our coins in 1865 and to our bills in 1957. However, now that it is in place as a tradition, albeit one that is hardly ever-present in the minds of Americans, the prospect of removing the phrase is dim. As Roosevelt found when he sought its removal, those who care about the issue care deeply, as ultimately, it makes a bolder statement to remove a proclamation of faith than it does to add one.
