I started this company because I love the diversity of America. The basic decency of her people, her boundless horizons and bounteous landscapes, the rejuvenating promise of her future, and, above all, the unfolding saga of her history. As an American, history is more to me than the annals of past events, a subject confined to textbooks and lecture halls. It is a living, breathing force, the pulse of human events.
The nexus of history and current events is politics. The history of the United States can be traced through the evolution of its political institutions and the careers of its political leaders. In a democracy, history is written by the will of the people, each generation inscribing a new chapter. Through the ballot, every citizen gains access to a great, unifying tradition, and has a hand in shaping the future. Politics, ritualized through elections and campaigns, is the catalyst that drives the engine of democracy. American political history is the chronicle -- often heroic, at times tragic -- of our shared encounter with destiny.
My political awakening took place during the tumultuous years of the late 1960s, a time when young men and women became involved in politics as never before. That moment also gave birth to my passion for collecting. It was a natural progression: from the love of history, to the realization that politics was history-in-the-making, to the discovery of a hobby devoted to the study and preservation of political memorabilia. As my political awareness grew, so too did my appreciation of the roots of our democratic traditions, and my fascination with the artifacts that have accumulated along the way.
Whether it's a clothing button from the birth of the American presidency in 1789, an invitation to Lincoln's 1861 Inauguration as the nation plunged into civil war, a McKinley 1896 mechanical gold bug representing the ingenuity of American politics, or a poster from the McGovern campaign reminding me of my volunteer work for the Senator in 1972, the thrill of adding an item to my collection, of finding that piece that brings me so close to touching our political history, never wanes.
