This is around my book chapter on the Battle of Gettysburg Half Dollar: Courtesy of MJ on the NGC Coin Forum “. . . Rice (PA State Chairman) had dispatched newspaperman Paul L. Roy, who was appointed the commission’s executive secretary at its first meeting, to assuage the fears of the hardened veterans (Southern) in September. ‘It was a slow and tedious process to weld an amicable association of mutual interests in the Reunion,’ Roy reflected. . . Continuing his campaign for reunion support, on March 12, 1936, Rice traveled by automobile from Gettysburg to the White House to meet with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Accompanied by President Hanson (Gettysburg College), Victor Mather (Attorney), Generals Shannon (Commanding General PA National Guard) and Kerr (PA Adjutant General), and Executive Secretary Paul L. Roy, Senator Rice explained his proposal for the grand reunion and asked for sanctioned, federal cooperation. Additionally, Gettysburg’s representative in the United States House of Representatives, Harry L. Haines, who had arranged the meeting, spoke of his legislation to strike fifty-thousand commemorative coins and create a commemorative stamp. . . Courtesy of the Adams County (PA) Historical Society. State commission meetings, likewise committed to the preservation of valor and nobility, continued throughout 1936. In the Senate Caucus Room at the State Capitol on June 30, Rice authorized the call for a joint meeting with Roosevelt’s nascent federal commission. A month later, meeting at General Shannon’s headquarters at Indiantown Gap, the state commission reviewed Pittsburgh artist Frank Vittor’s fourteen models for Harry Haines’ Gettysburg anniversary half-dollar. A sub-committee, consisting of Rice, Shannon, Kerr, and Roy, was appointed to complete the work of settling upon a coin design. By the end of summer, after consultation with William Ludwig of the State Art Commission, a model depicting one Union soldier and one Confederate soldier—side by side and looking symbolically forward under the banner of ‘Liberty’—was selected. The reverse side of the coin bore a reproduction of the commission seal. That summer, in addition to the commemorative coins, the publication of ten-thousand special, forty-eight page booklets, featuring photographs and information about the battlefield, was ordered. On January 6, 1937, Rice and the commission returned to the Penns-Harris Hotel for its most important meeting to date. The chairman welcomed Governor Earle and Secretary of the Commonwealth David L. Lawrence as his guests for this luncheon meeting, in which he reported the commission’s progress and suggested the conception of a ‘tent city’ to house the veterans. Although President Hanson had graciously offered the buildings of Gettysburg College, responses to the initial questionnaires the commission disseminated to veterans suggested a turnout too burdensome for the dormitories. The governor also participated in the first joint meeting of the federal and state commissions, held in Gettysburg on February 6, 1937. Unanimously, in recognition of his diligence and organization as state chairman, Senator Rice was elected chairman of the joint state-federal commission.”1 1. Adams County Historical Society. History is all about learning.
