In addition to coins, I also collect political items, mostly presidential campaign pieces. At the end of July I attended the American Political Items Collectors (APIC) national convention. One dealer had just purchased a significant collection of Wendell Willkie items. Willkie ran for president in 1940 against Franklin Roosevelt. Like others who ran against Roosevelt, he lost big time, but it was for not a lack of trying. His supporters put out a large number of slogan buttons which covered many issues and slogans. It is said that there are 900 varieties of Willkie slogan buttons. For example Roosvelt was running for an unprecidented third term. The most frequent slogan was "No Third Term!" This button is not is great shape, but it has significance to me because my mother wore it in 1940. Some other buttons had other ways of opposing the third term. And from the historical perspective. The dealer who had just bought a significant collection had this piece, which I had never seen before, a Souvenir Willkie Acceptance Celebration token. On the surface, this ceremony seems kind of silly. Willkie knew that he had won the Republican nomination for president, didn't he? In the 19th century, when communications were primitive, not always. In the 19th century, presidential candidates were supposed to act like George Washington. Asking for votes was considered to be inappropriate. The voters were supposed to seek you out, and if you were elected, it was your duty to accept the office. The whole thing was silly. No one, other than Washington, ever got elected president without working for it, but the game continued until the 1890s. Vice presidential candidates often gave all the speeches, and the presidential candidate stayed home and worked behind the scenes. One exception was Stephen Douglas, who hit the campaign trail in 1860, but that story is for another time. Perspective candidates often didn’t even show up their party’s national convention. That was considered to be “too forward.” But you can bet they knew what was happening. The one exception of Zachary Tayor, who successfully ran for president in 1848. Tayor knew people were working on his behalf at the Whig Party National Convention, but he didn’t attend. He said he had the taste in his mouth to be president “a little.” He also said that he was “a Whig, but not a strong Whig.” There were rumors that he had never even voted in an election. At any rate, Taylor won the nomination, but he didn’t know about it. He was staying at his plantation in Kentucky. He had been receiving many complementary letters from people. In those days, the people who received mail, paid for it, NOT the sender. Taylor had asked the Post Master NOT to send him any more letters. Therefore the letter which informed him that he had been nominated for president did not reach him. He did find out he had been nominated from a subsequent letter. By 1940, the nomination acceptance celebration was an anachronism, but it give Willkie’s supporters an excuse for another rally.
At the bottom of the card which holds the token shown above, you will note "The Green Duck Company." The Green Duck company was started in Chicago in 1906 by George G. Greenburg (Who had worked at Childs & Company, a well known name to people who collect Civil War tokens.) Harvy Ducgheisel. The firm was first called "Green Duck" but was later known as "The Green Duck Metal Stamping Company." The firm made tokens, medals and badges, but it was best known for its polititical buttons. The firm was some in 1962 and moved to Hernando, Mississippi. It produced Mardi Gras doubloons and casino chips. It was sold again, but did not do well. It closed for good in 2004.
