1904 Theodore Roosevelt and Alton B. Parker Campaign Medal Brass

A brass campaign medal for the 1904 presidential election, 32 mm, pierced at the top for suspension, and unlisted in the standard references. Roosevelt faces out of one side and Alton B. Parker out of the other, each portrait set inside a rectangular border. Carrying both candidates on one piece was unusual. The trade normally sold to one side or the other, and a medal that gives equal room to the man you are voting against is a novelty rather than a badge of allegiance. Parker, chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, was the Democratic answer to two straight defeats under Bryan: a sound-money conservative meant to win back the East. He took 140 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 336. Roosevelt had reached the presidency in 1901 on McKinley's assassination and wanted the office in his own right. He got it by the largest popular margin anyone had managed to that point.