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Those few loyal readers who have been around ever since issue 1 of Buttons and Ballots may recall that the first issue included an article on 1940 slogan buttons. The trio of buttons shown here are reproduced from the premier issue of Buttons and Ballots. This article is sort of a follow-up to the first, providing some additional information about the Willkie slogan buttons, as well as some additional illustrations.
First, some information about the slogan buttons generally. These buttons were issued on a daily basis during the 1940 campaign, responding to the very latest new breaks from the campaign. Willkie supporters seem to have initiated this avalanche of buttons, and, playing catch-up, the Democrats produced only a much smaller number of slogan pins. Willkie supporters wore these buttons with pride--as one of the buttons put it, "100 Million Buttons Can't Be Wrong." Given the vast number of buttons that have survived the half-century since the Willkie campaign, the 100 million figure doesn't seem to be much of an exaggeration.
Some of the slogans are so specific, so tied to one particular day and one particular statement uttered by one of the candidates that we collectors don't know what is being referred to on the buttons. One button, for example, says "Willkie says Spinach is Spinach. It sure is, Franklin!" Huh?
Another mysterious slogan to beginning collectors is "I Want to be a Captain Too." The story behind this button, however, can easily be traced using 1940 newspapers and magazines. Roosevelt's son Elliott applied for and received a commission as a captain in the Army Air Corps, prompting Republicans to claim the president had secured a safe and good-paying job for his son. Still, it was peacetime and there was no draft in effect at the time, so Elliott Roosevelt can hardly be called a draft-dodger. Also, since young Roosevelt was the owner of several radio stations, a job as captain in the Army was hardly gravy train for him.
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In his autobiography Elliott Roosevelt recalled, "During the Presidential campaign of 1940 I got some 35,000 letters and postcards, from all over the country, most of them unsigned, of course. At the time, you may be sure, those postcards rankled." Elliott tried to resign his commission to deprive the Republicans of the issue, but his resignation wasn't accepted, leading to still more Republican buttons. "Papa, They Won't Let Me Resign!"
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This article pictures eleven different buttons on the "I Want to Be a Captain" theme. Does that about cover it for these designs? Absolutely not! There are also the ones that say "I am Not a Captain," and the women's versions that say "I am Not a Captain's Wife." Some say "Wanna" while others say "Want To," some start with the word "Papa" while others don't, some use quotation marks while some don't. Some are small, some are medium, some are large. There are lithos and cellos, and a rainbow of background and text colors.
One interestingly specific one says "Elliott $316.00 a Month. Me Too." Another carries the Captain Elliott idea into the realm of fantasy: "Rah! Rah! For Gen. Jimmy, Col. Elliott, Admiral Franklin, Jr." Counting all the different varieties of wording, color, and size, how many "I Want to Be a Captain" buttons are there? I won't venture a guess, but will only say there seem to be dozens upon dozens. It would not surprise me to learn there were more than a hundred, but I leave the counting to others!
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One of collectors' favorites is this Willkie slogan pin, a one inch cello in blue on white. It reads, "6,000,000 Piglets Squeal, 'Hank Wallace's Raw Deal.'" This button refers to an incident from the early New Deal, when at the direction of Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, 6 million young pigs were slaughtered. At the same time, cotton and other crops were plowed under. This was done under the auspices of the new Agricultural Adjustment Administration (or AAA). New Deal critics complained that the Roosevelt administration was trying to end the paradox of poverty amidst plenty by destroying the plenty.
It did seem cruel to destroy cotton plants when many impoverished people around the world--and in America--were wearing rags. It did seem unjust to slaughter baby animals when poor people in Asia and in America could benefit from increased meat production. Yet Secretary Wallace knew that the greatest problem of American farmers was overproduction, and the only way to end that overproduction was to plow under crops and slaughter piglets as the New Deal got under way. In future years farmers could curtail the production before the year started--by planting fewer acres for example.
Wallace claimed that "The people who raise the cry about [feeding] the last hungry Chinaman are not really criticizing farmers or the AAA, but the profit system." Under capitalism, lower supply meant higher profits. Small farmers would soon be earning more money, spending more money, and helping to end the crippling depression.
Wallace was especially irritated by Republican complaints about the killing of the baby pigs. He thought the Republicans seemed to be claiming that "every little pig has the right to attain before slaughter the full pigginess of his pigness. To hear them talk, you would have thought that pigs were raised for pets." To his credit, Wallace did see to it that the pork from the slaughtered animals was distributed to the poor.
One last question--if the slaughter of piglets happened in 1933, why does this slogan appear on a 1940 button? The answer is that Wallace had just been added to the ticket as Roosevelt's new vice-president designate, and the pig incident was the one thing Wallace was most famous for, among Republicans anyway.
The 1940 slogan buttons were everywhere in the big cities. In New York, men were hawking the buttons as you came up from the subways. Enterprising New Yorkers soon discovered that these buttons were perfect for making into slugs to use in the subway turnstiles. You simply removed the pin, pounded the button flat, and put it into the slot. In the New York Times a transit official announced that on October 29, a typical day, the transit system had taken in 174 flattened Willkie buttons and 48 Roosevelt buttons. "This might indicate," the official said, "that the Democrats are four times as honest as the Republicans." Or it might prove, as we button collectors already know, that the Willkie forces simply produced a lot more buttons.
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The buttons were a topic of household conversation throughout the campaign. William Allen White, a noted Progressive Republican editor, urged after the election that citizens all over the country hold public bonfires, and burn the buttons (and also leaflets) from the 1940 campaign. The idea would be that "We destroy the symbols of partisan bitterness." If bonfires were held they apparently did not eliminate a goodly proportion of the 1940 campaign buttons. The majority of these buttons are seen often, on dealer lists, in catalogs, and at political collectibles shows. Most are still in the $6-10 range. Yet few buttons are more specifically educational for collectors who want to learn about the nation's presidential campaigns.
| © 1997 by Stephen Cresswell |
Sources: Thanks to Mark Evans for some of the information contained in this article. For more on Elliott Roosevelt's military career, see his book As He Saw It, published by Duell, Sloan, and Pearce in 1945. On bonfires, subway slugs, and other topics from the 1940 campaign, see the New York Times issues from 1940. On Henry Wallace and the piglet incident, see Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s The Coming of the New Deal.