Edwin Conger served in the House from 1885 to 1890, but this button welcomed him back home from farther afield than Washington, DC. It refers to his time as Minister to China from 1898 until 1905. While there, Conger witnessed the Boxer Rebellion, a 1900 peasant uprising targeting foreigners, and supported by the Chinese imperial government. A contingent of foreign troops eventually put down the rebellion. On this pin, the cartoon beneath Conger's portrait provides a racist stereotyped shorthand account of the conflict: a white woman with a baby is defended by a man in Western dress, pointing his gun at the back of a fleeing Chinese peasant, identifiable by his long, braided hair.
