William Ezra Jenner, July 21, 1908 (Marengo, Ind.) – March 9, 1985 (Bedford, Ind.)
VP candidate for States' Rights Party of Kentucky (1956)
Running mate with nominee: Harry Flood Byrd Sr. (1887-1966)
Popular vote: 2657 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/531
The campaign:
The States' Rights Party of Kentucky seems to have had it's origin with the issue of school integration in Union County. In Sept. 1956 Gov. A.B. "Happy" Chandler, a Democrat, was obliged to request the presence of 900 National Guard troops, with tanks, in the town of Sturgis. A crowd of 500 or so segregationists attempted to block a small group of African-American students from attending the previously all-white school-- a familiar scene that would be repeated for the next decade throughout the Southern states.
Said Chandler, "We regret it is necessary to use this means of guaranteeing equal rights to our citizens, but that we must do." White supremacists took advantage of the unrest and organized a rally in Morganifield, the county seat.
The mass-meeting called for the impeachment of Chandler and the formation of a States' Rights Party of Kentucky. Present was Louisville segregationist, KKK member, anti-Semite, and states rights' activist with a name right out of a Faulkner novel, Millard Dee Grubbs. In 1956 Grubbs had also formed an alliance with John Kasper, who was promoting fascist Ezra Pound for President in 1956 and not as an ironic joke. A petition was being handed around Morganfield by Jack Kershaw of Nashville, VP of the Tennessee Federation for Constitutional Government and W.W. "Jerry" Waller, a local farm implement dealer and President of the Union County White Citizens Council.
Kershaw (1913-2010) was an ardent segregationist, Southern secessionist, and later James Earl Ray's defense attorney. In later years he sculpted the infamous Nathan Bedford Forrest Statue, defending himself from the ensuing criticism with, "Somebody needs to say a good word for slavery".
Although information is scarce on the details, the Party apparently made it to the Kentucky ballot with Democratic Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr. of Virginia as their Presidential nominee and Indiana Republican US Senator and right-hand man to Joe McCarthy, William E. Jenner, as the running mate. It is probable both senators were nominated without their permission but they evidently did not spurn the honor. In this same election Jenner was also the Presidential nominee of another local states' rights party, the Texas Constitution Party.
On the ballot only in Kentucky, the Byrd/Jenner ticket placed third in that state with 0.25% of the popular vote.
Election history:
1934-1942 - Indiana State Senate (Republican)
1940 - Republican nomination for Governor of Indiana - defeated
1944-1945 - US Senate (Ind.) (Republican)
1947-1959 - US Senate (Ind.) (Republican)
1948 - Republican nomination for Governor of Indiana - defeated
1956 - US President (Texas Constitution Party) - defeated
Other occupations: elevator operator, attorney, soldier in WWII, land developer
Buried: Cresthaven Memory Gardens Cemetery (Bedford, Ind.)
Notes:
Defeated Charles M. La Follete, third cousin of 1924 Progressive Party Presidential candidate Robert
M. La Follette, for the Republican nomination for US Senate in 1946.
