NF.V RCRN CRAVEN COUNTY
PUbLIC LIBRARY
The NEW BERN
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PUBLISHID WBBKLY
IN THI HBART OP
IA8TBRN NORTH
CAROLINA
St Per Copy
VOLUME 14
NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1971
NUMBER 34
Yesterday was when New
Bernians were more en
thusiastic about wearing
political buttons than they are
today. Most citizens shy away
from making public display of
their voting intentions.
No one has a rl^t to argue
against this. Unleu a voter is
protected by a cloak of secrecy,
there can be no freedom at the
polls. Beyond that, those who
ask you to reveal your choice
deserve to be lied to.
Business men, the ones who
aren’t active politicians, con
sider it foolhardy to flaunt their
preference. Customers, they
sense, can be quickly irritated
by the merchant who
distributes campaign fodder.
Even if the customer’s sen
timents coincide with the store
owner’s, there is likely to be a
feeling that business and
poiitics don’t mix. And a
customer may be lost in those
instances where there is a sharp
difference of opinion.
But, getting bade to those
campai^ buttons, they were
flourishing as long ago in New
Bern as 1892. At first, Uie
celluloid discs were used in
lapel button-holes. A short time
later, pins were attached.
History says that the first big
order came from famed Mark
Hanna, when he purchased five
million for the successfui
McKinley campaign. Then as
now, celluloid was fairly
inexpensive, which explains
why no other type of button has
supplanted the original version
of any great extent.
If you’re under the im
pression that ingenuity in the
manufacture of political buttons
is a modem development, you
are mistaken. Some of the old-
time creations were master
pieces.
For example, supporters of
McKinley is his first
presidential campaign wore
snuill gilt bees in their lapels.
When the bee’s tail was flicked,
it released a spring. The wings
spread wide o|Mn, and photos of
McKinley and Hobart were
visible.
In addition, the Republican
party had an elephant shaped
pin, with a blanket that flew up
and displayed McKinley and
Hobart. Tliey also had a pin
called the "Presidential Chair’’.
By releasing a catch under the
seat, McKinley’s face was
revealed.
Perhaps the most unusual
political button to blossom that
year, or any other year, was an
emblem depicting the front door
of the White House. By
manipidating it, you could show
either McKinely or the man he
defeated, William Jennings
Bryan. '
Before celluloid buttons
arrived on the scene, campaign
butUms were made of lead,
rubber, brass, silver, wood and
bone. Woodcuts were being used
in the latter days of the I790’s,
and with the advent of the
1800’s, tintypes were used in
metal frames.
How effective are these
campaign buttons? That’s a
debatable question. Some of the
cutest, cleverest and most
derogatory were distributed in
(Continued on page K)
I
cA \ -Kv.!'- •
ONCE UPON A TIME—Only New Bern’s oldest
living citizens will recognize this stately frame
structure as the town’s original Centenary
Methodist church. It stood on New Street, across
from the Academy Green, and hundreds of happy
cotmles, in their graves now for generations, spoke
their wedding vows here. Babies in profusion were
christened at the altar within, and much of C^ar
Grove Cemetery is filled with the devout whose last
rites were solemnly spoken in the sanctuary.
Churches, like humans, sad to say, sometimes lose
their dignity and usefulness in declining years.
There came a day when this old edifice that had
meant so much to so many no longer sufficed. A
beautiful brick structure, the most spacious house
of worship in town, supplanted it at the comer of
New and Middle Streets. What does one do with an
old church no longer needed? In this instance it was
sold, and during early decades of the Twentieth
Century was used as a storage place for cotton
bales. The belfry was silent and forlorn, save for
the cooing of numerous pigeons that roosted there.
The steeple disappeared, ^th the passing of many
seasons, and eventually the building in its shabby
entirety was tom down. There were those who, to
the last, felt a tug at the heart whenever they
passed the old abandoned church, crumbling into
oblivion. Memories don’t fade easily, whether they
be bitter or sweet, and the wheels of progress can’t
erase them. Very few are the New Bernians still
around, however, who in retrospect hear old
Centenary’s bell, pealing in times of joy, and tolling
in times of grief. Yes, church houses, like mortals,
pass on, and ar.e forgotten.—Photo from Albert D.
Brooks Collection.