The Carl E. and Amelia Morgan Dorr Collection of Presidential Campaign Memorabilia

What is perhaps the most interesting, and equally informative and enlightening collection of historical material of its kind in the United States was presented to Syracuse University Library not long ago, and is now on permanent exhibition in specially constructed cases in the Lena R. Arents Rare Book Room.

The donors of this remarkable gift of Americana are Mr. and Mrs. Carl E. Dorr, Fayetteville, New York, both of whom were members of the Class of 1900. Mr. Dorr was captain of the Syracuse University football team of 1899, and also graduated from the Law College in 1902. He became a prominent attorney and civic leader of Syracuse, and for a number of years served as a member of of the Syracuse Grade Crossing Commission.

Known as the Carl E. and Amelia Morgan Dorr Collection of Presidential Campaign Memorabilia, the exhibition contains more than 3,000 political items, collected by them over a period of more than fifty years, and consists of campaign paraphernalia comprising: badges, ballots, bandannas, banners, books, buttons, china plates and pitchers, cigarette packs, flags, hats and helmets, lanterns, match boxes and covers, medals, wooden muskets, pamphlets, parasols, pennants, photographs, pictures, pins, placards, ribbons, sheet music, and song books, tokens, torches, and umbrellas, and an unassorted number of miscellaneous material associated with Presidential election campaigns from the time of George Washington on down to the present. The first President had no announced opponent, but present are buttons and pins distributed and worn in his advocacy; and the numerous items pertaining to each Presidential campaign since the beginning of the federal government constitute an illustrated index of the foremost issues and problems presented to the American electorate during all those exciting days and times.

As a young member of the New York bar, Mr. Dorr was naturally drawn into political circles and campaigns, first in his immediate community, then in his district, and as he became more experienced and his qualifications as a leader more evident, he found himself organizing and participating in political activities on a statewide scale and later on the national scene. Throughout all these events, Mr. Dorr's private attention was attracted to the various types of material used for the dissemination of political information, and almost before he realized it, he had accumulated a small but interesting collection of buttons, banners and badges. Very soon he recognized the historical significance of this material, and gradually he organized his collecting activities along a planned pattern with a definite system in mind.

Mrs. Dorr's counsel and advice plus the pooling of their instinctive propensities for collecting soon enabled the two to pursue the enlargement of the collection until, like Topsy, it just "growed" and took on the form of a serious, worthwhile enterprise. Mr. and Mrs. Dorr's expert knowledge of American political history made it possible for them better to understand the multitudinous variations in the national political arenas and to make their expert knowledge more expert and keener in detail.

On one occasion two summers ago, according to Mr. Dorr, he and Mrs. Dorr were driving through Massachusetts on their way home from a short vacation, when they stopped at a small and attractive wayside inn to have lunch and to get the car serviced at the same time. "As is so often the case," Mr. Dorr later related, "the dining room of the old establishment was decorated with antiques and oddities of various vintages offered for sale, but a casual survey assured us there was nothing which required purchasing. We had a delightful and leisurely New England lunch, and as I stepped up to the cashier to pay the bill, I glanced over her shoulder and espied something hanging on the wall behind her which froze me in my tracks. She must have thought I was unusually peculiar or particularly impertinent for there I stood, apparently staring right into her face without making a move or saying a word. When I had recovered my composure, I asked her if the little thing there on the wall was for sale, and I had to hold my breath when she replied that she did not know, she guessed it was, but she'd go ask her mother. From the pantry the mother emerged, took the little picture from the wall, wiped it off with her cloth, and handed it to me, saying she did not know exactly what it was, that it had come down in her family for several generations, and that I could certainly purchase it if I wanted it. When I had feverishly paid over her modest price, I became the owner of a pewter rimmed campaign insignia of 1796 containing the likeness of John Adams, first Vice-President of the United States, second President, and the first Chief Executive to live in the White House. I had never seen one before, and I had never seen another since. It is indeed a " rara avis."

Every Presidential election is represented in this collection by numerous items, some of them simple, uncomplicated, run-of-the-mill materials, while others are evidence of the ingenuity of campaign managers or the inventiveness of insignia manufacturers interested in selling a bill of goods. For instance, in the 1896 McKinley-Bryan contest, when the issues were a protective tariff and sound money based on a gold standard, one of the gadgets was a little metal yellow-colored bee, sometimes referred to as the "Gold Bug," made to be worn on the lapel; when its protruding tail was pressed or flicked, a spring was released, and the wings sprang out, revealing on each top surface small but brilliant photographs of the confident candidates, McKinley and his running mate, Garret A. Hobart. The Democrats, supporting free silver, had the "Silver Bug," the same sort of contraption except it was a different color, in line with that party's stand on the money question, and with pictures of its nominees on the wings: Bryan and Sewell. For the same campaign, and evidently from the mind of the same gadgeteer, was another pin emblem in the form of a small elephant; when a catch was pressed, the blanket over his back flew up and disclosed likenesses of the Republican candidates: McKinley and Hobart.

Another unusual one, for the 1888 campaign, was a lapel pin in the shape of a highback chair, labeled Presidential Chair, with the question printed on the seat cover: Who shall occupy it? When this was flipped up on its hinge, there beneath in large letters appeared the name: Benjamin Harrison, who actually polled 100,000 votes less than his opponent, Grover Cleveland, but defeated the President by sixty-five votes in the then, and still, archaic and undemocratic Electoral College. (Incidentally, this particularly dirty and muddy campaign was characterized by the use of the roor-back, a false and damaging report that circulated for political effect near or at the end of the a campaign, which derived its name from an instance of the kind in 1844, when an alleged extract from an account of travel by Baron Roorback was published as an attack upon James K. Polk, then a candidate for the Presidency.) The Presidential Chair device was used again later, in the campaign of 1896, but this time the answer to the question was: William McKinley.

In the Dorr collection are rare specimens of several of the macabre and funereal types of political novelties. In the 1896 campaign one pin was designed as a coffin, which when the lid was opened showed McKinley inside, and printed on the coffin itself were the date of the election and the words: "The tool of Trusts and British Gold." This sort of low campaign propaganda, it has been said, undoubtedly was at the least an indirect cause of the assassination of the President in September 1901. Another device, circulated by the Republicans during the same campaign, and quite likely produced by the same manufacturer who was playing both sides, was a brass lapel button also in the shape of a coffin; on the lower lid was " Billy Bryan, Nov. 3, 1896," and when the cover hinged open, there inside was a picture of the Democratic nominee, looking down on the legend: "Free Silver Knocked Him Out." Gruesome also was a little gilded metal skeleton with as pin attached at the base of the skull ; on the front was a panel with a hinge and clasp, and on it appeared in gold lettering the words: "Death to Trusts"; when this opened there was revealed inside a photograph of the handsome William Jennings Bryan, who was to live on to become a three-time loser.

The variety of materials which ingenious people have used for campaign devices in this country is amazing and astounding; and it may be noted that since about the turn of this century, the pins and buttons made of celluloid far outnumber any other kind, perhaps because of the low cost for high quantity. A few celluloid items appeared for the first time in the 1892 campaign, for the manufacturers were just then becoming acquainted with the substance and learning that they could produce things other than men's collars out of it. Celluloid took a big jump in the 1896 campaign, and continued to be used more and more extensively in all the campaigns up until 1944, when for obvious reasons, it could not be employed, and the buttons and pins were made of enameled metal, leather, paper, ribbon, and plastics.

Before the advent of celluloid, the principle materials for the manufacture of campaign emblems were mostly brass, silver, white metal, lead, wood, bone, rubber, and cloth, and in singular instances even gold was used, Cloth served for a large variety of things, and from a study of the Dorr collection, one learns with interest that at a big political meeting at Urbana, Illinois, on 15 September 1840, there was suspended between two poles an immense cloth banner bearing the crude inscription: "the People is Oll Korrect,' and wonders whether this is the origin of that American popular vulgarism known as "OK."

The grim and the gay, the pleasant and the unpleasant, the lovely and the unusual, and the picturesque and the crude, these and the plethora of other enlightening souvenirs of lively Presidential contests, the like of which have never been possible in any country except the United State, remind one that the great and the near-great aspirants for the highest office within the gift of the people have swept back and forth across the nation emblazoned with banners and buttons, and trailed by the slogans and songs of their supporters, all of which, when viewed together in a collection such as this , provides a tangible link to the political past, clarifies the colorful old campaigns, lights up many half-forgotten issues and candidates, and sweeps one into the great romance of American history.

Following installation of the collection in the Syracuse University Library, Mr. Dorr said to the Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books: "Mrs. Dorr and I greatly enjoyed gathering together this collection of campaign memorabilia over the past half a century. It has been an immense joy to both of us, a wonderful experience, and we have acquired a great deal more knowledge about American history than we should have without a study of these unusual and elusive items which are actually tangible symbols of the democratic principles of our great government in action. Over the years we made a large number of permanent friends among those people who came to see the hundreds of items overflowing the space available at our home, and to study and research for theses, dissertations, essays, and books. But all that amounts to only halfof our pleasure in forming this collection. We are both ardent advocates of the subject of the need to intensify a more widespread knowledge of American history, and we have the feeling that this collection, now readily available at our Syracuse University, will contribute much to the earning of that knowledge which is so vital to good citizenship. In making this collection accessible to all who come here to study in the great years ahead, we have acquired for ourselves the second half of the pleasure of collecting, and our measure of happiness is now complete."