Why is Ben Franklin on the one hundred dollarbill ?

Answer 1

No one knows the exact reason, but an FAQ by the Treasury Department tells us a little bit about how it happened. The individuals featured on our currency today were established in 1928 by a Congressional Committee. Unfortunately, there are no records of the reasons for their choices.

And actually Franklin himself was on the $100 bill beginning in 1914, and had been featured on other currency before that.

The BASIC reason why someone LIKE Franklin being chosen, as told by the Treasury Department, "portraits on our currency notes are of deceased persons whose places in history the American people know well."

http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/currency/portraits.shtml#q1

Franklin's important contributions to the founding of this nation fully justify the choice in any case. But another thing that may make it especially appropriate (whether this affected the actual choice or not) that he

"not only printed currency [for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware] using an ingenious anti-counterfeiting technique, and suggested the design for the first U.S. one cent coin (the "Fugio" penny), he also argued strongly for the usefulness of paper currency in his 1729 pamphlet, "A Modest Enquiry in to the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency".
http://www.benfranklin300.org/etc_trivia.htm#d

You can see some examples on this page:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/franklin-printer.html


The 'money' connection may make even more sense if you study the various folks featured on U.S. paper currency over the past century and a half. We have:

Presidents (esp. popular or 'major' ones like Washington, Lincoln and Jackson... also Madison, Monroe, Grant, Garfield, Cleveland, McKinley and Wilson),

some other major political leaders (Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Thomas Hart Benton),

popular military leaders (Stepehen Decatur, Winfield Scott Hancock, Admiral David Farragut, Philip Sheridan)

and a few others like explorers Lewis & Clark, and inventors Robert Fulton and Sameul Morse,

and SEVERAL who played an important role in the FINANCES of the country. The ones I've found:

Secretary of the Treasury: Alexander Hamilton (on MANY different bills), Daniel Manning, Salmon P Chase, William Windom
- first Treasurer of the U.S., Michael Hillegas
- "financier of the Revolution", Robert Morris
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To see a history of the portraits used on various bills, check out the following series

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_five-dollar_bill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_ten-dollar_bill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_twenty-dollar_bill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_fifty-dollar_bill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_one_hundred-dollar_bill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_Note

Answer 2

Because of the frowny face. They want you to really think before handing it over.

Answer 3

Becasue he is "big money." He was really cool.