‘All the credit to the Lord’: How a small-town Arkansas man got God on America’s money
June 1, 2026
The children of the late Arkansas man whose grassroots effort led to “In God We Trust” adorning U.S. paper currency say that their father’s providential story shows “one person, with the Lord’s help, can make a difference.”
The Christian Post reports that Matthew Rothert Sr.‘s daughter Alice Rothert Nelson, said her father was attending church in Chicago on June 21, 1953 when the Holy Spirit impressed upon him the idea that “In God We Trust” should be featured on American banknotes as it was on coins.
Nelson told the Christian Post, “The collection plate was going around, and he felt God tell him that the coins had ‘In God We Trust,’ but it was the bills that went all around the world. And he believed he should get ‘In God We Trust’ on the bills of the paper money, and so that started the campaign.”
The phrase “In God We Trust” was first engraved on U.S. coins during the Civil War, after a Baptist minister from Pennsylvania, petitioned then-Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase at the end of 1861 to promote “the recognition of the Almighty God in some form in our coins”
The minister, Mark Richards Watkinson, believed that honoring God in such a public way “would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism,” and he wrote, “This would place us openly under the divine protection we have personally claimed.”
According to the Christian Post, Salmon P. Chase and James Pollock, a minister then serving as director of the U.S. Mint, agreed with Watkinson, ultimately leading Congress to pass a law in April 1864 allowing “In God We Trust” on the one- and two-cent pieces.
Nearly a century later, Rothert followed Watkinson’s example, giving speeches, rallying support and firing off many letters to officials, including President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Treasury Secretary George W. Humphrey, urging them to add the phrase to paper money.
In an unusually swift and bipartisan action, the bill was on Eisenhower’s desk by July 11, 1955.
Changing the master dies and printing plates at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to include “In God We Trust” would typically have been too cost-prohibitive, but they were already set to be replaced that year in order to accommodate a new printing process.
Rothert’s daughter, Hope Rothert Taft, said that her father’s connections, the political position of his friends and the remarkable timing could only have been orchestrated by God.
She told the Christian Post, “You can see how all the stars aligned perfectly to make this happen. Who would have ever thought that a small businessman from the small state of Arkansas could make something so big happen?”
Photo: top, Credit: Getty Images