Employment For Labor Blue

A lunch pail featuring slogans and the face of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. The background of the button is blue.

This button is a political campaign button from the 1900 United States presidential election. The two men featured are Republican Presidential candidate William McKinley and his vice-presidental running mate and future president, Theodore Roosevelt. In the 1900 election, Republicans strongly appealed to industrial workers as they represented the North. Other candidates such as the Populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan and the Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debbs also made industrial workers a pillar of their campaigns.

Sound money, labor employment, and food were all key components of McKinley's re-election campaign. McKinley had a strong following having led the nation out of a economic depression and to victory in the Spanish-American war. While he would defeat Bryan, his second term would be short. In 1901 he was assassinated by Leon Czolgosz and succeed by his vice-president, Roosevelt. The dominance of the Republican party would continue for years until a divide between Roosevelt and William Howard Taft would allowed Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency.