The usual concern of an editorial page is government ineptitude or corruption, but it is also our occasional pleasant duty to call attention to cases of government competence – the most recent of which is Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s proposed redesign of U.S. currency. In fact, “competent” is too weak an encomium for Lew’s elegant handling of a sensitive task – to include images of women and minorities on heretofore white-male-dominated paper money.

In responding to a groundswell that began with Internet-based petition drives to replace Andrew Jackson’s image on the $20 bill with that of a woman, Lew had to navigate all the treacherous crosscurrents that characterize identity politics in 21st-century America. He initially planned to meet the demand for a woman by replacing Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, which was due for a redesign anyway.

When that met with resistance from Hamilton’s admirers – ranging from former Federal Reserve chair Ben S. Bernanke to fans of the eponymous Broadway musical – Lew took their good arguments into account and pivoted to a wider, and even more inclusive, plan to modernize several bills, not just the $10 or the $20.

The hallmark of Lew’s plan is addition, not subtraction; to embroider ever more of the country’s complex history, and the characters who made it, into these most widely used of government documents – as opposed to purging them or dumbing them down.