Earl Farwell Dodge Jr.

Earl Farwell Dodge Jr., December 24, 1932 (Revere, Mass.) - November 7, 2007 (Denver, Colo.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (aka National Prohibition Party aka Independent) (1976)
VP candidate for National Statesman Party (aka Independent aka Statesman Party) (1980)

Running mate with nominee (1976, 1980): Benjamin Calvin Bubar Jr. (1917–1995)
Popular vote (1976): 15,932 (0.02%)
Popular vote (1980): 7,206  (0.01%)
Electoral vote (1976, 1980): 0/538

The campaign (1976):

The Prohibition Party nominee for President was Benjamin Bubar, a Maine printer and ordained Baptist preacher. He had experience being elected to public office serving in the State Legislature and local offices as a Republican.

Commenting on the Party's conservative non-alcohol platform issues, Bubar said in later years "We're not a one-issue party. We've always had more than one string in our fiddle. We've been around for a long time ... We believe in a representative republic, but what we've got right now is a socialist democracy bordering on anarchy."

The 1976 platform reads like a Christian nationalist document although there are some nods to social welfare. Apparently the convention narrowly voted to oppose capital punishment, but that plank did not make it to print.

The AP described the convention:

The national convention, first ever held west of the Mississippi River, was attended by about 100 delegates from 19 states, but only about 60 were still on hand to sing "Onward Christian Soldiers" and wave their signs after the candidates were selected. Most were in their 60's and 70's and had been party members all their lives. There were almost no young people in attendance as the 106-year-old party prepared to shut down its gathering.

The real story behind the 1976 race for the Prohibition Party was the debut national-level appearance of the VP choice, who according to some accounts was an obstructionist in his role as a Party official in implementing some of Bubar's ideas for streamlined management and marketing of the Party.

Earl Dodge had been involved with the Party for over two decades before he stepped into the role of a national candidate. After 1976 he would basically be the face of the Party for a quarter century or so. Like many other third parties where one individual has been in power too long, his tenure as a Party leader was a good news/bad news thing, and according to present day Prohibition Party literature the bad news half got worse with each passing year until he was finally overthrown.

Oddly, the 1976 convention took place in the same area where Dodge's body was laid to rest decades later.

On the good news side Dodge kept the home fires burning during a period of time where the Prohibition Party could have easily died. Granted, those fires were allowed to become feeble embers with each passing election. The controversial side will emerge in the course of my profiles of Prohibition Party VPs and inner conflict within this organization over the subsequent decades.

As the campaign began, Dodge told the press the Party needed to change their image from that of stovepipe hat wearing humorless moralists who look like "they are perpetually sucking on a sour lemon." He added, "I'm sure most people think members of the party have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel."

Also early in the campaign Bubar told a newspaper that he aimed to, in the reporter's words, "Broaden the party's appeal to the same constituency as Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace."

After the initial news coverage of the June 1975 convention the media all but ignored the Bubar/Dodge ticket except for the occasional fluff jokey article.

The Bubar/Dodge ticket had results from a dozen states including some write-ins. As testimony to how well regarded Mr. Bubar was in his home state, they finished with 0.72% of the popular vote in Maine. Next best results were in Alabama 0.56%, Colorado 0.27%, and Kansas 0.15%. This would be the last election to date (Dec. 2019) that the Prohibition Party earned more then 10,000 votes or finished with a percentage as high as 0.02% of the national popular vote.

The campaign (1980):

The same ticket was revived in 1980 but with less success. In an effort to add some pizzazz and get away from the image of being a single-issue party, the name was changed to the National Statesman Party. Although the name had changed, the platform remained in the hard Right.

The ascent of Ronald Reagan had provided Christian conservatives and Protestant evangelicals with a political home and no doubt robbed the Prohibition/National Statesman Party of potential voters. To this day the Prohibition Party platform seems almost parallel and redundant with the Republican Party and other Right-wing groups in many ways-- except for alcohol.

Any centrists or progressives who might agree with the Party about the seriousness to public safety and general well-being posed by alcohol or other substances would find it difficult to support the rest of their platform. Years later Prohibition Party Presidential candidate Gene Amondson lamented to me how it bugged him that it was actually the Democrats who clamped down on public smoking. The Prohibition Party missed a chance to focus on different aspects of public health and form positive alliances across the political spectrum. Earl Dodge bears quite a bit of responsibility for perpetuating this political isolation and having the Party's platform be an extension of his own extremely conservative views. As we have seen in election results and dwindling membership one could propose this has not done them any favors in terms of a broader appeal.

If the media had not covered the Party very well in the 1976 campaign they practically ignored the Bubar/Dodge ticket in 1980. The true descent into near oblivion had begun.

With votes reported in a dozen states including write-ins they finished strongest in New Mexico 0.28%, Arkansas 0.16%, Alabama 0.13%, Colorado 0.10%, and Kansas 0.08%. The 0.01% national vote result was the worst percentage in the long history of the Prohibition Party.

Although the organization had changed their name to the National Statesman Party they were listed as either Statesman Party or Independent on the ballots. The Party returned to their previous name by the next election.

Other occupations: dealer in political memorabilia, Prohibition Party editor, Colorado State Elections Advisory Board 1974, Prohibition Party Presidential Elector 1968 (Mich.)

Election history:
1954 - Massachusetts Governor's Council (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1956 - Massachusetts Secretary of State (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1958 - Kosciusko County Commission (Ind.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1959 - Winona Lake (Ind.) Council (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1960 - US House of Representatives (Ind.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1966 - US Senate (Kan.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1969 - Kalamazoo (Mich.) City Commission (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1974 - Governor of Colorado (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1978 - Governor of Colorado (National Statesman Party) - defeated
1982 - Governor of Colorado (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1984 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1986 - Governor of Colorado (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1988 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1990 - US Senate (Colo.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1992 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1994 - Governor of Colorado (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1996 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1998 - Regent At Large, Colorado State University (Prohibition Party) - defeated
2000 - Independent American Party nomination for US President - defeated
2000 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
2004 - Prohibition Party nomination for US President - defeated
2004 - US President (National Prohibition Party) - defeated
2008 - US President (National Prohibition Party) - died before election

Buried: Crown Hill Cemetery (Wheat Ridge, Colo.)

Notes:
Joined the Prohibition Party in 1952. He was formerly a Republican. 
Member of the National Christian Citizens Committee.
Alternate sources give his birthplace as Malden, Mass., which is where he was raised.
Winner of the 1960 election was Charles Halleck.
Winner of the 1974, 1978, 1982 elections was Dick Lamm.
Buried in the same cemetery as Barbara Bates, Richard James Biggs, and ironically, Adolph Coors.
Baptist.
Quite possibly holds the record among third party VPs for running for office the most times without
 ever winning.

Marshall E. Uncapher

Marshall E. Uncapher, July 23, 1928 (Madison, Kan.) - June 10, 1994 (Cobb County, Ga.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1972)

Running mate with nominee: E. Harold Munn (1903-1992)
Popular vote: 13,497 (0.02%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

It was E. Harold Munn's third consecutive shot as the Presidential nominee of the Prohibition Party, a feat that had been unprecedented for the Party up to that time. It took the Party three ballots to agree on a candidate in 1972, and among the defeated was Marshall Uncapher, who went on to be selected as the VP over Roger I. Williams of Massachusetts. Uncapher (pronounced Unca-fur) was on his home turf. Not only was the convention held in Kansas where Uncapher was State Chairman of the Party, but it was in a Nazarene Church, a religious faith to which the running-mate subscribed.

1972 also marked an entire century of the Prohibition Party consistently running candidates for President and Vice-President and it remains America's third oldest political party to this day.

The 1972 Prohibition Party platform was pretty much a replay of the 1968 version. But among the new additions for this election cycle of were these two items:

Environmental Awareness

An awareness of the various problems related to the area of ecology is essential. We believe that all men have a right to a wholesome environment. Accordingly, government must establish standards and enforce a program which will insure a satisfactory stewardship of land, water and air throughout the nation. In particular, we insist on the right of everyone to a pure water supply and to an unpolluted atmosphere. We urge increased emphasis on tertiary treatment of sewage, on the development of fission-type reactors and, as soon as technologically feasible, atomic fusion as a substitute for fossil fuels in electric power generation, and on the substitution of relatively non-polluting sources of power in motor vehicles.

The News Media

We believe in the importance of freedom of the press and of other news media. There must be no suppression of this freedom when properly exercised. On the other hand, we deplore the role of the media in sensationalizing a growing moral permissiveness. We believe that this creates the impression that the media are acting as approving and applauding onlookers. We deplore the decline of investigative reporting, and demand that the media once again become responsible informants of the public.

They were on the ballot in only four states with the ever-faithful Alabama and Kansas being their strongest showings: Alabama 0.85%, Kansas 0.46%, Delaware 0.10%, Colorado 0.05%. 1972 would be Munn's final campaign for any office.

Election history:
1964 - Kansas Insurance Commissioner (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1966 - Kansas Insurance Commissioner (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1968 - Governor of Kansas (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1970 - Governor of Kansas (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1972 - Prohibition Party nomination for US President - defeated
1974 - Governor of Kansas (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1983 - US House of Representatives (Ga.) (Prohibition Party) - special primary - defeated

Other occupations: teacher, principal, salesman, poet, author, Indiana National Guard.

Buried: Georgia Memorial Park (Marietta, Ga.)

Notes:
1983 race did not actually list party affiliation on the ballot.
Moved to Georgia in 1975.
Was a possible spoiler in the 1974 race.

Rolland Ernest Fisher

Rolland Ernest Fisher, June 3, 1900 (Newport, Neb.) - February 4, 1982 (Topeka, Kan.?)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1968)

Running mate with nominee: E. Harold Munn (1903-1992)
Popular vote: 15,123 (0.02%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

The Prohibition Party once again nominated E. Harold Munn for President and in this round selected Kansas-based Party stalwart Rolland E. Fisher as his VP.

The 1968 platform sure looked a lot like the 1964 platform, and as the times they were a changin' pretty fast the Prohibition Party was having a difficult time connecting with voters on issues that were relevant in that era.

Their national result of 15,123 votes (0.03%) might seem paltry today, but that is huge compared to what the Prohibition Party would be earning at the end of the 20th century. Listed as choice in ten states, the Munn/Fisher ticket finished strongest in Alabama (0.38%), Fisher's own Kansas (0.25%), Indiana (0.22%), and Montana (0.19%). Since WWII Kansas and Indiana were consistently among the top states where the Party consistently finished with the highest percentages up to this point.

Election history:
1950 - Kansas Secretary of State (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1958 - Kansas Treasurer (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1960 - Kansas Auditor (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1962 - Kansas Auditor (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1964 - Kansas Auditor (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1966 - Governor of Kansas (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1972 - Governor of Kansas (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1974 - US Senate (Kan.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated

Other occupations: farm labor, soldier (US Marine Corps), Methodist minister, newspaper editor, on Board of Directors of the Topeka Rescue Mission, Prohibition Party Elector 1952-1956 (Kansas)

Buried: Memorial Park Cemetery (Topeka, Kan.)

Notes:
Winner of the 1974 race was Bob Dole.
1974 race was apparently a write-in campaign
Came to Kansas in 1916

Mark Revell Shaw

Mark Revell Shaw, January 22, 1889 (Grand Rapids, Mich.) - June 4, 1978 (State College, Penn.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1964)

Running mate with nominee: E. Harold Munn (1903-1992)
Popular vote: 23,267 (0.03%)    
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

At their August 1963 the Prohibition Party nominated 1960 VP candidate E. Harold Munn for President and Methodist minister Mark. R. Shaw, age 74, as his running mate.

Although the 1964 Prohibition Party had some strong anti military-industrial complex language, the Party continued to drift to Right in terms of school integration, federal aid to education, and states' rights. The Platform also stated: "We declare our belief that the Bible is not a sectarian book, but is a volume of universal appeal and application which is woven into our history, our laws, and our culture. We deplore any interpretation which would limit its use in any area of our national life."

VP nominee Shaw had a long history of promoting pacifism and had considerable travel experience in his role as a missionary. His statement on "confusionism" during the 1964 campaign is interesting and consistent with the Party's stand against growing militarism in that era:

Confusionism, which so permeates our social order and threatens our body politic, seems daily to be more confounded. Take, for example the case of Senator Goldwater. For years, he has been crusading against the Communists, at home and abroad. He has been so concerned that he talks of sending the Marines to Cuba and of using atomic weapons in Viet Nam. Few, whether or not they agree with his ideas, doubt his sincerity. Yet, who is doing more to aid the Communists that he ­ because he seems unable, or unwilling, to see things in perspective?
    Think of the hundreds of millions of underprivileged, poverty-stricken people among the colored races in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, many of whose parents suffered at the hands of White imperialism and colonialism. Today, they struggle to be free, to gain a new sense of dignity and equality, so long denied them.
    In the contest between democracy and communism for the minds of these millions, what greater boon could be given to the thousands of communist propagandists seeking for converts in Africa and Asia than for the news to be flashed around the world next November that Barry Goldwater, after he had voted against the Civil Rights Act, had been elected President by the people of The United States?

Prohibition Party historian Roger Storms wrote: Shortly after Mark Shaw was nominated for Vice President of the United States, a Maryland woman wrote to him on a postcard:  "Do you really think that Prohibition is something that can stir support from the American people in this election? I don't." To this he replied: "Neither do I. But, I think it ought to, and that makes all the difference."

With votes recorded in 11 states their best results were in Kansas 0.63%, Indiana 0.40%, and Delaware 0.21%. As of today their national finish of 0.03% has never been surpassed since 1964.

Election history:
1946 - US Senate (Mass.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1948 - Governor of Massachusetts (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1950 - Governor of Massachusetts (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1952 - US Senate (Mass.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1956 - Governor of Massachusetts (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1958 - US Senate (Mass.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1960 - US Senate (Mass.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1962 - US Senate (Mass.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1966 - US Senate (Mass.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1967 - Prohibition Party nomination for President - defeated
1970 - US Senate (Mass.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1971 - Prohibition Party nomination for President - defeated

Other occupations: Methodist minister, international missionary, editor of Peace Action

Buried: ?

Notes:
Winner of the 1946 race was Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., one of Shaw's other opponents was future 1964
 Socialist Labor Party VP nominee Henning A. Blomen.
Winner of the 1952 and 1958 race was John F. Kennedy.
One of his opponents in the 1956 race was Henning A. Blomen.
Winner of the 1962 and 1970 race was Ted Kennedy.
Winner of the 1966 race was Edward W. Brooke.
Was raised by parents who were active prohibitionists.
Member and officer in the National Council for the Prevention of War starting in the 1930s.
Graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University 1913.

Earle Harold Munn Sr.

 Munn and Decker

 Decker, Earl Dodge, Munn

Earle Harold Munn Sr., November 29, 1903 (Bay Village, Ohio) – July 6, 1992 (Hillsdale, Mich.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1960)

Running mate with nominee: Rutherford Losey Decker (1904-1972)

Popular vote: 46,203 (0.07%)
Electoral vote: 0/537

The campaign:

At their Sept. 1959 convention the Prohibition nominated Baptist preacher RutherFord Losey Decker for President and E. Harold Munn as his running mate.

In reading contemporary news accounts of the 1960 election season Decker did not appear to be an energetic campaigner. Even so, by some accounts the Decker/Munn ticket was reportedly feeling pressure from conservatives to withdraw from the race and endorse Nixon in order to prevent the Catholic JFK from moving to the White House. To the credit of both Decker and Munn they stayed their course.

Earl Dodge, who was already rising within the Party ranks in 1960, later recalled: "The 1960 campaign was marked by tremendous pressures on Dr. Decker to withdraw in favor of Richard Nixon, [in order] to prevent John Kennedy from being elected.  Dr. Decker and I pointed out that Mr. Nixon would be even more apt to breach the wall of separation [between] church and state than would Kennedy (how time has proved us right)."

Munn was a protégé of Prohibition Party veteran Enoch Arden Holtwick the 1952 VP nominee and 1956 Presidential nominee. Munn's son, E. Harold Munn Jr. (1928-2016) wrote the following about 2003/2004:

"In 1932, the pressure was applied to 'scratch the ticket' and vote for Herbert Hoover to 'save Prohibition.' Contrary to the advice of Dr. Holtwick, dad succumbed to the 'logic' and voted Republican ­ only to see his vote 'lost' and Prohibition go down the drain under the Roosevelt 'New Deal.' He vowed then and there never to again compromise principle for expediency ­ and he never did! He contended hard for this issue in 1960 when the pressure was applied to 'vote Republican and keep a Roman Catholic out of the White House....' Unfortunately, others abandoned both him and other Prohibition Party candidates to vote for Richard Nixon, receiving the defeat they were by choice a part of. But he did not retreat."

The 1960 platform had shifted a bit to the Right since the 1956 version, adding strong declarations of anti-communism and pro-states' rights.

The ballots in Silver Bow County, Mont. printed Munn's name as "Numm" which created a brief stir in the media.

Given the large number of third parties on the 1960 ballots, the Prohibition Party had a relatively good showing. They placed 5th after the Unpledged Electors and were barely behind the Socialist Labor Party. Although having 0.07% of the national vote is not something to write home about, it would be the last time the Party would ever register above 0.03% in a Presidential election. From 1992 to the present they have consistently finished in the 0.00% range. 0.07% looks pretty good now, eh?

On the ballot in 11 states their strongest results were in Kansas (0.45%), Alabama (0.37%), California (0.33%), and Indiana (0.32%).

According to one source, Decker went on to endorse George Wallace in the 1968 Presidential election. Munn would be the Party's Presidential nominee for 1964, 1968, and 1972.

Election history:
1941 - University of Michigan Board of Regents (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1942 - Lt. Governor of Michigan (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1944 - Michigan State Senate (Prohibition) - defeated
1948 - Michigan Secretary of State (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1949 - Michigan Superintendent of Public Instruction (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1950 - Michigan State Senate (Prohibition) - defeated
1951 - Mayor of Hillsdale, Mich. (Prohibition) - defeated
1952 - Mayor of Hillsdale, Mich. (Prohibition) - defeated
1952 - Governor of Michigan (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1953 - Mayor of Hillsdale, Mich. (Prohibition) - defeated
1954 - Governor of Michigan (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1958 - Michigan State House of Representatives (Prohibition) - defeated
1959 - Michigan Superintendent of Public Instruction (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1961 - Michigan Superintendent of Public Instruction (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1964 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1968 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1972 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated

Other occupations: Prohibition Party elector for Michigan 1948, 1952, 1976, 1980, 1984, educator, college dean, radio station executive, credit union president

Buried: Oak Grove Cemetery (Hillsdale, Mich.)

Notes:
Buried in the same cemetery as Capt. "You May Fire When Ready, Gridley" Charles Vernon Gridley.
Methodist.
"I would rather lose in a cause that will ultimately win, than win in a cause that will ultimately lose."--E. Harold Munn, Sr.
Some sources give his death date as June 6, 1992.

Edwin Maurice Cooper

Edwin Maurice Cooper, May 12, 1885 (Clay County, Neb.) - February 26, 1971 (Montebello, Calif.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1956)

Running mate with nominee: Enoch Arden Holtwick (1881-1972)

Popular vote: 41,937 (0.07%)
Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

Chairman Lowell H. Coate resigned his office, walked out the 1955 Prohibition Party convention and took about 20 delegates with him in an effort to form a new umbrella third party which became the Pioneer Party. This episode is covered in the Burr McCloskey profile.

Meanwhile, political nomad and retired General Herbert C. Holdridge was searching for a new home. He wanted the Prohibition Party Presidential nomination but settled for the position of running mate alongside Party stalwart Enoch Arden Holtwick. In 1952 Holdridge had been the American Rally nominee for President (without a VP nominee) parallel with his nomination from the American Vegetarian Party. He had a falling out with the AVP and withdrew/was removed from the ticket before the election. Holdridge quit the American Rally Party as well but waited until immediately after the 1952 election to do so. Burr McCloskey, the 1956 Pioneer Party VP nominee, had been Holdridge's 1952 campaign manager for both the AVP and American Rally.

After being the VP nominee for nearly year, Holdridge gained some unwanted publicity for the Prohibition Party when he was ejected from the August, 1956 Republican Party convention for handing out anti-Eisenhower literature described as "virulent" and "scurrilous." It was shortly after that incident he either voluntarily withdrew or was kicked out of the position of running mate for Holtwick. After a scramble the Party selected California attorney and Prohibition loyalist Edwin M. Cooper as the replacement.

Holtwick was 75, Cooper 71. Not quite the oldest combined ages on a Presidential ticket in US history, but close.

The 1956 Party platform was mostly a repeat of the 1952 version, but there was a new section in this one that could be considered quite progressive:

Extension of Democracy

  To help perfect our political democracy and extend it to all who live under our flag we urge;

    (1) The submission to the people of an amendment to the Constitution to provide for the election of the President and Vice-President directly by the people;

    (2) Immediate home rule and the franchise and representation in Congress for the District of Columbia;

    (3) Immediate statehood for Alaska and Hawaii;

    (4) Encouraging Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and Samoa to advance as rapdily as possible to complete internal self-government;

    (5) We recognize the right of all Indians to full citizenship.

On the ballot in 10 states, their best showings were in New Jersey (0.37%), Kansas (0.35%), and Indiana (0.33%). That doesn't look very exciting but they actually fared better than most of the other third parties in the 1956 Presidential race.

Election history:
1954 - Attorney General of California (Prohibition) - defeated
1958 - Attorney General of California (Prohibition) - defeated

Other occupations: attorney, YMCA leader

Buried: Rose Hills Memorial Park (Whittier, Calif.)

Notes:
Methodist
Sometimes called Edward M. Cooper
Buried in the same cemetery as Lewis Arquette, Ron Glass, William Hopper, Nguyen Coa Ky.
Graduate of USC Law School, passed the bar in 1910.
His opponent in the 1954 AG race was Edmund G. "Pat" Brown.

Burr McCloskey

Burr McCloskey, July 15, 1920 (Akron, Ohio) - January 2, 2001 (Evanston, Ill.)

VP candidate for Pioneer Party (aka American Pioneer Party) (1956)

Running mate with nominee: William Langer (1886-1959)

Popular vote: 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

A case can be made that the short-lived Pioneer Party was a splinter of the Prohibition Party.

Lowell H. Coate (1889-1973) who was raised a Quaker and aspired at one time to be a Methodist minister, had at some point embraced atheism and was an ardent pacifist. Somehow in 1953 he became the first and only non-Protestant and humanist to attain the chairmanship of the Prohibition Party. Unsurprisingly, his tenure was brief.

One of the speakers at the 1955 Prohibition Party nominating convention was Republican maverick North Dakota US Senator William "Wild Bill" Langer. He was an isolationist and friendly to the prohibition cause. He used his opportunity to speak at the convention to criticize what he saw as President Eisenhower's willingness to bow to Wall Street. There was talk of Langer being the Party's Presidential nominee.

Apparently Coate and his faction supported Langer, but something dramatic happened as reported in the Sept. 8, 1955 issue of the Kokomo Tribune: "Dr. Lowell H. Coate of Los Angeles, who resigned this week as national chairman of the Prohibition Party and announced that he and 20 secessionists had organized a Pioneer Party, once was a resident of Howard County ... Dr. Coate resigned as chairman when the party rejected his proposal that it take a broader name adopted to embrace a wider range of questions than liquor ..."

The departure of Coate and his entourage was also the departure of the last significant faction of progressives within the Prohibition Party.

By Nov. 1955 the Pioneer Party had organized to the point where they held a convention with around 30 delegates from 16 states. They were affiliated with the American Rally Party and hoped to create an umbrella for all third parties by 1960. A news account at the time reported: "The delegates adopted a platform calling for economic reform, a return to constitutional government, a 'golden rule' foreign policy and free health service. The platform urged demilitarization and 'repudiation of war and conscription.'"

Sen. Langer was nominated for President by Burr McCloskey and in turn the convention selected the latter gentleman as the running mate.

McCloskey had been the campaign manager in 1952 for Herbert C. Holdridge when he ran for President under the banner of the American Rally for Peace, Abundance and the Constitution (aka the American Rally Party) in tandem with for President as the nominee of the American Vegetarian Party. Holdridge's effort was, to be direct, a fiasco.

Langer and McCloskey had known each other since 1938. Both men were brilliant, erratic, and unpredictable. They worked together in a theatrical but Quixotic attempt to deny Earl Warren his confirmation to the Supreme Court. Langer even denied he knew concerned-private-citizen McCloskey, which was a straight out lie. So when the Senator later called his nomination by the Pioneer Party "nonsense" one has to wonder how much Vaudeville was taking place in this game. On McCloskey's part, some on the progressive side felt that although he used rhetoric from the Left he might have been a stalking horse for the Right given his outspoken anti-Communist views.

In the end it was much ado about nothing. The Pioneer Party was not on any ballot and ceased to exist after the election.

Election history: none.

Other occupations: worker at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., labor organizer, soldier (WWII), steel mill worker, campaign manager, poet, playwright, novelist, advertising agency owner.

Buried: Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum (Chicago, Ill.)

Notes:
Buried in the same cemetery as Charles Gates Dawes, Bobby Franks, Virginia Graham, Oscar
 Mayer,  Reinhart Schwimmer, Ignaz Schwinn, Richard Warren Sears, Aaron Montgomery Ward.
If elected would have become President upon the death of Langer Nov. 8, 1959.
"I learned how to fight as a wee boy because my name is Burr and my father's name was Burr. The popular cant is that Aaron Burr was a traitor, and my lovely chums in grammar schools across the country used the cant to malicious advantage, I had to fight because I knew better. In my family the saying around the Sunday dinner table was that the only mistake Burr made in killing Hamilton was that he should have done it twenty years sooner. I still believe this. There was a national debt, an Eastern establishment: it all goes back to Hamilton. He was a pimp for Washington at Valley Forge. He should have been killed twenty years sooner. American history is so distorted that it still isn't nice to say this in polite society"--Burr McCloskey, 1973.

Enoch Arden Holtwick

Enoch Arden Holtwick, January 3, 1881 (Rhineland, Mo.) – March 28, 1972 (Greenville, Ill.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1952)

Running mate with nominee: Stuart Hamblen (1908–1989)

Popular vote: 73,412 (0.12%)
Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

Overtures were apparently made to Gen. Douglas MacArthur offering the Presidential nomination for the Prohibition Party in Nov. 1951. Mac did something he didn't do with the America First, Christian Nationalist, and Constitution parties (all of whom went ahead and nominated him whether he liked it or not)-- he actually released an official statement declining the honor: "I am not a candidate for the office of president and have no political ambitions of any sort ... While I do not associate myself with some of the principles enunciated by your party, I have always understood and respected the high moral and spiritual tone of its activities."

While the General rejected the offer, another well known character was actively lobbying for the nomination, the Rev. Homer Aubrey Tomlinson. The Party rejected his advances and Tomlinson went on the create the Church of God Party for the 1952 Presidential election.

Meanwhile longtime Prohibition Party office-seeker Enoch Arden Holtwick, a 70-year old educator was the odds-on favorite to win the nomination, having coming close to winning the position in 1947. But singing cowboy star and recording artist Stuart Hamblen, a recovering alcoholic-- who was converted in 1949 at a Billy Graham tent revival-- took the convention by storm when his song It Is No Secret What God Can Do was played. The final delegate tally was close but Holtwick once again missed the nod. This time he was awarded with the nomination as running mate.

The 1952 platform was a bit more centrist than the previous few election cycles. In the age where segregation was still the law in the South, the Prohibition Party did make a stand against racial discrimination. The most glaring thing about this particular platform was the frequent use of the word "deplore," which was associated with the more Right-leaning planks:

Constitutional Government

      We are strongly opposed to atheistic communism and every other form of totalitarianism. We deplore their infiltration throughout the nation. We challenge all loyal citizens to work against this menace to civilization. We are convinced that the best safeguard against these dangerous doctrines is to protect the rights of our citizens by enforcing the provisions of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Free Enterprise

      We deplore the current trend toward a socialistic state, with its increasing emphasis upon governmental restraint of free enterprise, regulation of our economic life, and federal interference with individual freedom. We declare ourselves in favor of freedom of opportunity, private industry financed within the structure of the present anti-trust laws, and an economic program based upon sound business practice.

Social Security and Old Age Pensions

      We endorse the general principle of social security, including all employed groups. We deplore, however, the widespread current abuses of its privileges and the maladministration of its provisions for political ends, and pledge ourselves to correct these evils.

Their national 0.12% share of the popular vote would be the last time the Party would finish with more than 1/10th of one percent. To their credit they finished 4th in a crowded field, with only the Progressive Party beating them in the third party category.

Out of 20 states where their votes were recorded their strongest finishes were in Indiana (0.78%), Kansas (0.67%), and Alabama (0.43%).

Holtwick would be the Presidential nominee in the next round, 1956.

Election history:
1912 - California State Assembly (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1914 - California State Assembly (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1916 - California State Assembly (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1936 - Treasurer of Illinois (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1938 - US Senate (Ill.) - defeated
1940 - US Senate (Ill.) - defeated
1942 - US Senate (Ill.) - defeated
1944 - US Senate (Ill.) - defeated
1947 - Prohibition Party Presidential nomination - defeated
1948 - US Senate (Ill.) - defeated
1950 - US Senate (Ill.) - defeated
1951 - Prohibition Party Presidential nomination - defeated
1956 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1960 - Governor of Illinois (Prohibition Party) - defeated

Other occupations: bookkeeper, real estate salesman, educator, President of Wessington Springs Seminary (South Dakota), President of Pacific Junior College (Los Angeles, Calif.), history and political science teacher at Greenville College (Greenville, Ill.)

Buried: Mount Auburn Cemetery (Greenville, Ill.)

Notes:
Winner of the 1948 Senate race was Paul Douglas, of the 1950 Senate race, Everett Dirksen.
Methodist.
Ranks #9 playback.fm's "Most Famous Person Named Enoch"
USC MA 1914, dissertation was entitled The Role of the Third Party in American Politics.
Filed for Gov. of Illinois in 1960 according the newspapers but apparently was not on the ballot?

Dale Harold Learn

Dale Harold Learn, December 8, 1897 (East Swiftwater, Penn.) - March 16, 1976 (East Stroudsburg, Penn.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1948)

Running mate with nominee: Claude A. Watson (1885–1978)

Popular vote: 103,708 (0.21%)
Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

Claude Watson was nominated again for President but not without a contest. Other names proposed were Enoch Arden Holtwick (future 1952 VP nominee and 1956 Presidential nominee), David Leigh Colvin (1920 VP nominee and 1936 Presidential nominee with Watson as his running mate) and Dale Harold Learn, a realtor from Pennsylvania. Watson won the prize and Learn was nominated as the running mate.

Watson knew how to work the media. He publicized the fact he was the first Presidential nominee to pilot his own campaign airplane. A tall tale was told that Mrs. Watson had already visited the White House in order to make redecoration plans when she assumed the role of First Lady.

The 1948 Prohibition Party platform did indeed have a few extreme statements regarding alcohol and God being the source of all government, but on many other issues it is a surprisingly centrist document given their earlier hard Right religious turn in 1940 and 1944. This time they probably had the most moderate platform in tone of the many third parties running that year.

They earned 0.21% of the national vote, landing in 6th place. As paltry as that sounds the Party would never come close to finishing with a percentage that high again. Their 103,708 popular votes marked the final instance where they surpassed 100,000.

On Election Day, the Watsons were unable to vote since their absentee ballots had been misplaced.

With recorded votes in about two dozen states, the Watson/Learn ticket had their largest percentages in Indiana (0.89%), Kansas (0.82%), Washington (0.68%) and Michigan (0.62%).

Election history:
1942 - Governor of Pennsylvania (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1946 - US Senate (Penn.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1947 - Prohibition Party nomination for US President - defeated

Other occupations: school director, realtor, lay minister for the United Methodist Church in East Stroudsburg, Penn., Trustee of East Stroudsburg State College, US Army soldier WWI.

Buried: Laurelwood Cemetery (Stroudsburg, Penn.)

Notes:
Mason
Buried in the same cemetery as Walter Burke and A. Mitchell Palmer.

Andrew Nathan Johnson

Andrew Nathan Johnson, September 21, 1875 (Jackson County, Ky.) - August 30, 1959 (Lexington, Ky.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1944)

Running mate with nominee: Claude A. Watson (1885-1978)

Popular vote: 74,758 (0.16%)    

Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

Claude A. Watson, who had been the running mate in 1935, was nominated in Nov. 1943 for President and Rev. Floyd C. Carrier was selected as the VP. Carrier developed some health problems and was replaced by Rev. Andrew Nathan Johnson in January 1944.

In addition to proposing a single six-year term of office for the Presidency, the 1944 Prohibition Party platform continued the open appeal to Christian churches as it had in 1940:

True Use of the Ballot:

  We pledge our support to the original purpose of the ballot, which is to register the individual voter's conviction on principle, and not merely to elect persons to office. We recognize church leaders, pastors, church officials, members and editors of Christian literature as very influential on behalf of higher standards of political action, and we urge them to recognize and teach the true use of the ballot for principle. We urge them to unite in this party, which upholds righteousness as implied in the Ten Great Comandments and the Golden Rule.

The Liquor Problem:

  Right thinking people are alarmed at the rapidly growing peril of the liquor power as now manifested:

    1. Inflicting the alcoholic appetite upon millions of girls and women.
    2. In multiplying juvenile delinquency.
    3. In increasing gambling, vice and all kinds of crime.
    4. In combating the efforts of the church and other moral forces.
    5. In dominating our great organs of public opinion.
    6. In subjecting political leaders and parties to its control.
    7. In delaying, if not endangering, the success of our war effort.

  The re-legalizing of the liquor traffic has brought about the worst moral reaction of modern times. Present conditions are due directly to the action of Government in restoring the liquor power through repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, and repeal was due directly to the platform pledges of both the old parties in the 1932 presidential campaign.

  Of all the wrongs committed by Government none has been worse than the authorizing of the liquor traffic to degenerate our own citizenship.

Watson was denied permission for priority airplane travel or to buy a new car for the campaign by war rationing agents. By and by he apparently was given his air travel rights and was issued extra gasoline for campaigning by auto. Watson also made the news when his brother was arrested on a DWI charge in Feb. 1944.

On the ballot in a couple dozen states, they finished strongest in Oregon (0.49%) and Alabama (0.45%)

Election history:
1908 - US House of Representatives (Ky.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1943 - Governor of Kentucky (Prohibition Party) - defeated

Other occupations: Methodist minister

Buried: Wilmore Cemetery (Wilmore, Ky.)

Notes:
Graduated Asbury College 1903, DD from Ohio Northern University, PhD from Milton University
 (Pennsylvania?).
Buried in the same cemetery as Leander Lycurgus Pickett (1859-1928) who was the VP candidate for
 the American Party in 1924 and made a trustee of Asbury College one year after Johnson graduated.

Edgar Vaughn Moorman

 Babson and Moorman shake hands

 Babson's sign on the back of his Cadillac

Edgar Vaughn Moorman, January 21, 1878 (Big Spring, Ky.) - August 8, 1942 (Quincy, Ill.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (aka New Prohibition Party) (1940)

Running mate with nominee: Roger W. Babson (1875-1967)

Popular vote: 57,903 (0.12%)

Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

In 1940 the Prohibition Party selected a ticket where both nominees were relative newcomers to the Party and neither one had ever run for office before.

Roger W. Babson was a Republican and ultra-wealthy eccentric entrepreneur. His running mate Edgar V. Moorman was a lifelong Democrat and successful businessman. Together they would shift the Prohibition Party to the religious hard right, where it still resides to this day. 

The 1940 platform included this evangelical call to arms:

A Coalition Party

  While both of the major political parties are performing useful service in emphasizing different needs, entangling alliances with corrupt interests, necessary to their success, make it impossible for these parties to take a definite stand on moral issues, even though these issues today are fundamental in solving our nation's problems. Therefore, there must be a union of church people and others who stand first for righteousness, into a Third Party. The NEW Prohibition Party serves such a purpose.

Shortly after the election Babson penned a book about the campaign. Among his many observations and suggestions was this: "Of one thing I am very certain-- namely, that 'Babson and Moorman' would have secured many, many more votes in 1940 if we had been on the ballot as a straight Church Party than as candidates of the Prohibition Party. I shall never run again as a Presidential candidate for any party; but I do insist that if churches will not combine and back the Prohibition Party, then a Church Party should be organized into which they will combine. Of course, the candidates must be high-grade churchmen, beyond reproach and having ability, intelligence, and experience. They should also be young men with courage and energy."

Moorman suggested the Party be renamed His Kingdom Party.

In an election year that was not kind to third parties, the Babson/Moorman ticket placed fourth nationally, considerably less than the Socialist Party of America, but just a shade more than the Communist Party USA. With votes recorded in 30 states, their best finish was in Arizona with 0.49%.

Election history: none

Other occupations: Ran a livestock feed and stock medicine company (Moorman Manufacturing Company, Quincy, Ill.)

Buried: Greenmount Cemetery (Quincy, Ill.)

Notes:
Started the Moorman Manufacturing Company with his brother Hamilton in Gorin, Mo., but later moved the operation to Quincy, Ill.
If elected he would have died in office when he suffered his heart attack Aug. 8, 1942.
Left half a million in his will to the Layman's Trust for Evangelism.
Methodist.

Claude Alonzo Watson

Claude Alonzo Watson,  June 26, 1885 (Wexford, Mich.) – January 3, 1978 (Los Angeles, Calif.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (aka National Prohibition Party aka Commonwealth Party) (1936)

Running mate with nominee: David Leigh Colvin (1880-1959)

Popular vote: 37,646 (0.08%)

Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

The 1936 Prohibition Party convention selected WWI hero Alvin York as the running mate for D. Leigh Colvin (who was himself the 1920 VP selection for the Party) but the decorated soldier declined so the delegates turned to Los Angeles attorney Claude A. Watson.

It must have been a very difficult campaign year for the Colvin/Watson ticket. It was the first presidential election since the experiment with Prohibition had ended and for the veteran Party activists it must have felt like starting all over again.

The 1936 Party platform, seething with anger, roasted the two major parties over repeal of Prohibition. It also outlined policy statements on other issues and stated: "We present a sane, liberal and comprehensive program on the great problems of our time." This would probably be the last time the word "liberal" was used in a positive way by this group. 

Other selected passages foreshadowed the future for this party:

"It is plain that the crass materialism of our dominant parties; their abandonment of moral precepts; their flouting of the majesty of the law; their double dealing; their supreme self interest must be replaced by a return to the early American principles of dependence upon Almighty God as the source of all just government and to a following of the principles of the Prince of Peace."

"Movie Censorship

  We stand for federal supervision of the creation of motion picture films at the source of production so that the public effect may be beneficial and uplifting."

"Gambling

  We are opposed to the legalization of lotteries, gambling and all other forms of exploitation of the people."

With recorded votes in 25 states, their strongest finish was in California with 0.49%.

Election history:
1938 - Attorney General of California (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1942 - Attorney General of California (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1944 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1946 - Attorney General of California (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1948 - US President (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1950 - Attorney General of California (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1952 - Los Angeles County (Calif.) District Attorney (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1954 - Republican nomination for Attorney General of California - defeated

Other occupations: minor league baseball player, attorney, Methodist minister, author

Buried: Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale, Calif.)

Notes:
Buried in the same cemetery as Forrest Ackerman, James Arness, Theda Bara, Joe Barbera, George Barris, Billy Barty, L. Frank Baum, Warner Baxter, Iceberg Slim, Wallace Beery, Joe Besser, Joan Blondell, Monte Blue, Humphrey Bogart, Gutzon Borglum, Clara Bow, William Boyd, Joe E. Brown, Vincent Bugliosi, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Francis X. Bushman, Jack Carson, William Castle, Lon Chaney, Charlie Chase, Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole, Donald Crisp, George Cukor, Bob Cummings, Michael Curtiz, Dan Dailey, Delmer Daves, Sammy Davis Jr., William Demarest, Noah Dietrich, Walt Disney, Theodore Dreiser, Marie Dressler, Don Drysdale, W.C. Fields, Larry Fine, Errol Flynn, Dwight Frye, Clark Gable, Jerry Giesler, Samuel Goldwyn, Sydney Greenstreet, Jean Harlow, Edith Head, Edward Everett Horton, Michael Jackson, Jennifer Jones, Tom Keene, Ted Knight, Kathryn Kuhlman, Louis L'Amour, Alan Ladd, Carole Landis, Mervyn Leroy, Harold Lloyd, Carole Lombard, Ernst Lubitsch, Jeanette MacDonald, Chico Marx, Gummo Marx, Mike Mazurki, Chuck McCann, Victor McLaglen, Vincente Minnelli, Tom Mix, Clayton Moore, Hugh O'Brian, Merle Oberon, Clifford Odets, Edna May Oliver, R.F. Outcault, Lilli Palmer, Franklin Pangborn, Mary Pickford, Dick Powell, Blossom Rock, S.Z. Sakall, David O. Selznick, Aimee Semple McPherson, Norma Shearer, Red Skelton, William French Smith, Carrie Snodgress, Max Steiner, Casey Stengel, Jimmy Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Taylor, Irving Thalberg, Spencer Tracy, Ben Turpin, Hal B. Wallis, Mary Wells, James Whale, Bobby Womack, Sam Wood, Robert Woolsey, Hank Worden, William Wyler, Ed Wynn, Keenan Wynn, and Robert Young
The winner in the 1938 race for Attorney General of California was Earl Warren.
The winner in the 1950 race for Attorney General of California was Edmund G. "Pat" Brown.
Graduate of Alma College (Mich.)
His widow, Maude (1889-1996) lived to be 106.
Licensed pilot.
Sometimes called Dr. Claude Watson although the origin of the prefix is murky.

Frank Stewart Regan

A caricature of J. Lester Haberkorn by Frank S. Regan

Frank Stewart Regan, October 3, 1862 (Rockford, Ill.) – July 25, 1944 (Canton, Ill.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1932)

Running mate with nominee: William David Upshaw (1866-1952)

Popular vote: 81,905 (0.21%)

Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

The Prohibition Party attempted, and failed, to recruit Senator William Borah of Idaho as their Presidential nominee. Former Democratic Congressman William D. Upshaw of Georgia accepted the nomination but declared he would step down if Sen. Borah had a change of heart. Frank S. Regan, who turned 70 during the campaign and performed as a cartooning lecturer on stage, was selected as the VP choice.

The 1932 platform denounced the impending repeal of Prohibition. It also provided a detailed economic recovery plan. But the part that caught my eye was this:

Motion Pictures

  We favor Federal control at the source of the output of the motion picture industry to prevent the degrading influence of immoral pictures and insidious propaganda connected therewith.

On the ballot in less than half the states, it seemed America was ready to leave Prohibition behind. Their strongest finish was in California with 0.91%.

Election history:
1895-1897 - Alderman (Rockford, Ill.)
1899-1900 - Illinois House of Representatives (Prohibition Party)
1900 - Illinois Attorney General (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1902 - US House of Representatives (Ill.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1908 - Illinois Attorney General (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1920 - Prohibition Party nomination for US Vice-President - defeated
1928 - Prohibition Party nomination for US Vice-President - defeated
1932 - Prohibition Party nomination for US President - defeated
1933 - Illinois Treasurer (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1936 - Illinois Attorney General (Prohibition Party) - defeated

Other occupations: worked at Rockford (Ill.) Abstract Co., tax expert, attorney, author, cartoonist, lecturer, store clerk

Buried: Greenwood Cemetery (Rockford, Ill.)

Notes:
First Prohibition Party member elected to a state legislature.
Died from a skull fracture while falling in a bathtub.
Mason
Congregationalist
First known cartoonist on a presidential ticket.