Actually Theodore Roosevelt was a very religious individual, and as such, he believed that the Deity was lessened by having "God" on money. There is an old saying, "Money is the root of all evil". When the first St. Gaudens $20 pieces were released in 1907, they did NOT have "In God We Trust" on them, and this is largely believed to be because of TR's intercession with the designer of the coins, Augustus St. Gaudens. However the public as a whole objected, and the motto was later placed on the coins. It is a curious irony that atheists and the religious can both object to the placement of the motto "In God We Trust" on coins, but they do, albeit for differing reasons.