Campaign Medals Issued on Behalf of Three of Our Worst Presidents.

[BillJones]

At the end of the "Ever wonder why only dead presidents appear on our coins" string, I wrote a few words about three of the worst American Presidents, Franklin Piece, James Buchanan and Warren G. Harding. Piece and Buchanan stood by while the U.S. slid into disunion and the Civil War while Harding was what Alice Roosevelt Longworth (Teddy Roosevelt's oldest daughter) simply called him "a slob." So here they are, campaigning for office:

 

This is a rare original issue of the largest Franklin Piece medalet from the 1852 campaign. This piece was restruck in the 1860s, and the restrikes are the pieces that are most often available although the mintage on those was probably no more than 20 pieces. There is probably less than ten examples of this original piece.

 

Piece tried to cast himself as an army general, but his credentials were weak. He did volunteer for the Mexican War, but before the fighting started his horse bucked him. During that event his groin hit the pommel of his saddle, giving him a very painful injury. He would spend the rest of his service limping though that injury and suffering from the heat. One less than kind review summed up his Mexican War career this way:

 

“Pierce tumbled from his horse just as he was getting ready for one fight … fainted and fell in the opening of the second … got sick and had to go to bed on the eve of the third, and came pretty near to getting into a fourth, missing it only by an hour.”

 

Piece was also known as "The general who never lost a bottle," which referred to his drinking problem. While he was president he was once pulled over by the Capital Police for riding his horse while intoxicated late at night in Washington, DC.

 

 

I always get a chuckle from this 1856 Buchanan medalet which reads, "Buchanan, the crisis DEMANDS his election." Buchanan did have the have a great resume. He had been a Congressman, a Senator, secretary of state and an Ambassador to Russia and Great Britain.

 

 

By the time Warren Harding ran for president in 1920, nicely made campaign medalets were decidedly passé, but here is an exception. The "America Always First" comment on the reverse was a little jab at the internationalist policies of outgoing president, Woodrow Wilson.

 

One good think you could say about Harding. If your thing was drinking whiskey and playing poker with "the boys," Harding might have been one of your best buddies. He was very popular among the leadership of the Elephant Party. He was the Elephant Party National Chairman before he was president.

 

 

We can go into some of the details as to why history has not been kind to these presidents, if there is interest.

 

 

[njf]

I'm always up for an interesting read. These are nice medals

[KeyMan64]

The medals are nice but the write-up is better. The details on Pierce are really funny.

[RWB]

Alice Roosevelt was being generous in her remarks. Harding was also called the stupidest man to ever serve in the Senate.

 

PS: Was "A.P." Adam Pietz?

[BillJones]

I don't know the answer to that, Roger. The same die sinker also made this piece for Harding's opponent, James Cox.

 

 

There has been little or no organized research done on 20th century political medalets from what I have seen. Collector interest seems to be very low, and they get only sporadic coverage in references like the Hake guide which is largely devoted to buttons.

[RWB]

Thanks! At least the artist was fair to both candidates - the workmanship is equally awful.

[BillJones]

Thanks! At least the artist was fair to both candidates - the workmanship is equally awful.

 

It is not unusual for a political items maker to produce pieces from both major party candidates in an election year with a similar look and style. I can cite and post pictures of many examples. It was a matter of revenue, not political conviction.

 

The workmanship is better on these two pieces than it is on most all of the political medalets that were issued in the 20th century.

 

Here are George and Lurleen Wallace. In the mid 1960s George Wallace could not succeed himself in as Alabama governor so he ran his wife instead. Lurleen was not well educated and had held no position higher than dime store clerk before she ran. She won the election.

 

During her term she come down with cancer and wasted away. Despite her terminal illness George kept her in office until the end. It was not a pretty picture.

 

I have more 20th century pieces with artwork that is just as bad or even worse. I believe that this piece is molded in plastic.

 

[jpcienkus]

Very interesting Bill.

 

I just googled Harding. He doesn't look like a slob in the pictures that came up, but I will say his wife could not be considered attractive in any light. In one of the pictures, she looked a little like Herman Munster.

[BillJones]

 

1920 Harding Campaign Button

 

People at the time did not think that Harding looked like "a slob." In fact one of the selling points for his nomination, after the Elephant Party convention became deadlocked between the prime candidates, was that Harding "looked like a president."

 

Harding's wife, Florence, was nicknamed "The Duchess" and many people considered her to be "a female dog on wheels." She was a divorcee, which was not a popular thing for a woman to be she and Warren were married in 1891. Florence's father strongly objected to the marriage because he claimed that Harding had African-American blood in his background. He called Harding "a N-word" and threatened Harding's life if he kept seeing his daughter. The marriage took place however, and it was not a happy outcome for Warren.

 

Florence was an ambitious woman and she was constantly pushing Warren to make his newspaper, the Marion Star, a success. She had managerial skills and probably pushed Warren beyond where he would have been had Florence not been involved.

 

The tension between them lead Warren to have at least two extra marital affairs. One of them, with Nan Britton continued after Warren was in the White House, and probably resulted in a daughter. It has been established that Warren and Nan enjoyed each other's company in the White House sometimes in one of the closets.

 

Warren Harding was not a good president, but it would be unfair to condemn him completely. One of his best cabinet appointments, Charles Evens Hughes, organized and chaired an important naval arms reduction agreement between The United States, Great Britain, France and Japan that was considered to be a landmark achievement at the time.

 

Personally Harding was the first president since the Civil War period who stood up for Civil Rights. In an acceptance speech for an honorary degree from the University of Alabama, Harding gave an address to a racially segregated audience of 20,000 Whites and 10,000 Blacks. To this group he stated:

 

"I want to see the time come when black men will regard themselves as full participants in the benefits and duties of American citizenship ... We cannot go on, as we have gone on for more than half a century, with one great section of our population , number as many people as the entire population of some significant countries of Europe, set off from real contribution of solving national issues, because of a division on racial lines."

No matter why you might think of Harding, you have to admit to say that in the middle of KKK territory, when that hate group was in the rise in the 1920s, took a lot of courage.

 

[Conder101]

When the KKK was on the rise in the teens and early twenties their main focus was not on the blacks (It still was to some extent.). The KKK had pretty much been slapped down before that time period, but it was brought back and strengthened by the Prohibitionists who used it as an "enforcement arm" against Catholics, immigrants, and other anti-prohibition groups.

[jpcienkus]

I agree Bill. I think any man who publicly stated that back in the '20's was brave, let alone the President. I really know very little about the less popular Presidents. I'm sure there is a lot of information out there on all the Presidents, but I've never felt compelled to read it. I think it's partly due to the fact that politics in general really get me annoyed.

[BillJones]

 

Here is an interesting story about the Franklin Pierce presidency.

 

Currently Cuba is in the news because of the president's proposal to normalize relations with it, but what would it have been like if Cuba had become a part of the United States? If Franklin Piece had had his way it probably would have happened.

 

In 1854 Pierce authorized his secretary state, William Marcy, to begin negotiations with Spain to buy the island for as much as $120 million. If Spain refused to sell, Pierce authorized steps "to detach that island from the Spanish dominion." In other words, if we couldn't buy it we would go to war to take it.

 

Marcy turned the task over to the U.S. Minister to Spain, Pierre Soulé, to draw up the details. Soulé met with the U.S. Minister to France, John Y. Mason and the U.S. Minister to Great Britain, future president, James Buchanan to draw up the plans. The result of their meeting was called the Ostend Manifesto, laid out the plans for the purchase or U.S. takeover of Cuba.

 

The New York Herald got wind of the story and published the details. The result was a firestorm of protests from the administration's opponents, which included the abolitionists. The plan was to expand slavery by acquiring Cuba and ultimately making it into a state that would expand slave territory and interests.

 

The exposure of the Ostend Manifesto immediately brought those plans to an end, but imagine what it would have been like if the plans for Cuba had become a reality. If it had been a state by the start of the Civil War it would have been another southern state, which would have expanded the operations of the Civil War for both sides. It may have even caused additional problems for the Union blockade of the southern sea coast.

 

And here's a another little tidbit. There was a soldier of fortune named William Walker, who in 1855 started a successful revolution in Nicaragua. Walker succeeded and made himself president of Nicaragua. The Pierce Administration immediately recognized the new government, and Walker at least had plans to turn Nicaragua into, you guessed it, a new slave state as a part of The United States.

 

For a politician from New Hampshire, Franklin Pierce was certainly looking out for the southern point of view and the expansion of slavery to new states.