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A great many political collectors love presidential items, but turn up their nose disdainfully at "local" items. Of those collectors who collect locals, most prefer items supporting candidates for Governor and U.S. Senate. Only a hardy breed of collectors, who understand that "all politics is local," are willing to admit their interest in the truly local items, including buttons issued by candidates for county sheriff.
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The office of sheriff dates back to ninth century England. The King appointed officers called reeves, to be his personal representative in districts called "burghs." Later, each reeve served in districts called "shires," and they were thus shire reeves, or sheriffs. In practice, the offices became hereditary, being passed down from father to son. As might have been expected, the efficiency of these hereditary sheriffs varied widely, but it wasn't until 1747 that the kings of England succeeded in abolishing the inheritance of the sheriff's office. English sheriffs originally were judicial as well as administrative officers, but gradually the crown appointed new types of judges to take over the sheriffs’ judicial functions, and sheriffs became strictly administrative.
In England today many of the sheriffs’ duties are strictly ceremonial. Each year three persons are nominated for high sheriff in each English county. Their names are engrossed on parchment paper and presented to the Queen. Under an ancient English law, the Queen takes a bodkin (needle) and makes a prick mark next to each name that she selects. Despite all the high ceremony, much of the work of the counties’ high sheriffs are done by deputies.
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In the United States most people associate the sheriff with law enforcement. The popularity of cowboy movies in our recent past make us think of sheriffs in connection with arrest of criminals, especially "desperate" ones. Actually the sheriff is the county’s chief executive officer, analogous to the president and the governor at the national and state levels. If we think back to our high school civics classes, we all learned that the legislative branch makes the laws, the judicial branch interprets the laws, and the executive branch enforces the laws. Thus, we probably should think of presidents and governors in the context of law enforcement too. But because states and nations are so large, governors and presidents do little more than perform a remote oversight of law enforcement. Counties are small enough that even today, many sheriffs do investigate cases and personally make arrests.
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The cowboy movies weren’t all that far off the mark. Sheriffs are responsible for the lawfulness of their communities, and few things can poison a community more than a corrupt or incompetent sheriff. Sheriffs do have the power to raise posses, and in most states they play a role in summoning jurors and witnesses. In most states they are responsible for the county jail, and usually the county court house itself. In many states the sheriff is also the county tax collector or county treasurer.
Certainly there have been a lot of sheriff buttons made in the United States since the first pinback buttons appeared 100 years ago. Every one to four years (depending upon the state) sheriffs are elected in the roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. The only exceptions are the counties of Hawaii and Rhode Island, which do not elect their sheriffs. Actually there are three odd counties in the other states that also do not elect their sheriffs. These are the counties surrounding Denver, Miami, and Seattle.
Some critics have charged that electing law enforcement officers is not a wise practice, and have advocated instead the formation of county police departments. While such departments would not abolish the office of sheriff, they would trim the sheriff’s duties for hands-on law enforcement.
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Why collect sheriff items? Few offices have more romance associated with them, and a collection of sheriff buttons can form an interesting picture gallery of men who battled crime (as well as collected taxes). No other elected office provided more danger to the incumbent—and not just the danger of a gaffe at a press conference. Untold numbers of sheriffs have been gunned down in the line of duty. Looking at the pictures on the buttons, some of the sheriffs look like tough lawmen, while others look more like the legendary Barney Fife. Pictures of five-starred lawmen's badges are always a real plus on sheriff buttons as well as on paper handouts.
Don't expect to be able to identify many of the sheriffs in your collection of sheriff buttons. Unless the sheriff in question later went on to greater prominence, you probably will not find him (or her) in biographical dictionaries.
Sheriff buttons offer mystery, romance, and—when compared with presidential items—a lower price tag and less competition among collectors. Some sheriff buttons are priced so cheaply at shows and at auctions that it seems like a crime to pay so little for items with so much interesting history!
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| A donkey, a lawman's star, and bright color aimed to capture attention for sheriff candidate Chub Connor. But would desperadoes respect a sheriff named Chub? Joe Vigil (right) couldn't have a better name for a sheriff, and he sports as much impressive braid as any South American dictator. | |
Sources: Oxford Companion to the Law; Plano and Greenberg, The American Political Dictionary.
The article above mentioned Barney Fife, noted deputy sheriff from TV-land. Actually the Andy Griffith Show of the early 1960s did a real disservice to Americans’ understanding of local government. Andy was always described as "Sheriff of the Town of Mayberry." As we all know, however (especially after reading the preceding article), sheriffs preside over counties, not towns. In fact, incorporated towns like Mayberry generally have their own police forces, so actually Andy’s law enforcement efforts would have focused everywhere in the county except Mayberry. Still, despite the misinformation, it’s hard to stay mad at good-natured Andy Taylor, or rather Andy Griffin.
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One final side-light: In real life actor Andy Griffin never had to face a sheriff's election. He did run for U.S. Senate from North Carolina at one point, though, and Andy Griffin political buttons do surface in the hobby from time to time.