Clifton DeBerry

 DeBerry in upper left, NYC Mayor candidate debate 1965

Clifton DeBerry, September 18, 1923 (Holly Springs, Miss.) - March 24, 2006 (Union City, Calif.)

VP candidate for Socialist Workers Party (1972)

Running mate with nominee: Evelyn Reed (1905–1979)
Popular vote: 13,878 (0.02%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

Clifton DeBerry's Vice-Presidential run in 1972 is hardly ever included in his resume of campaigns, but the Socialist Workers Party veteran did indeed serve as a running mate in that year. Notice I said "a" running mate rather than "the" running mate. The official SWP VP nominee was Cleve Andrew Pulley, who along with the official SWP Presidential nominee Linda Jenness, was too young to meet the Constitutionally mandated age of 35 to be sworn into office.

In most states this age problem was regarded as academic, but in Indiana, New York, and Wisconsin the Jenness/Pulley ticket was not allowed on the ballot. So in those states the Party substituted Evelyn Reed for President (she had actually met Trotsky in 1940) and Clifton DeBerry.

DeBerry had been the Party's Presidential nominee in 1964. Although there were other African-American nominees for President in the past, DeBerry was the first where his name appeared on a ballot. His role in the 1972 campaign as a substitute VP did not seem to loom large in his roster of accomplishments.

Their showings: Indiana 0.26%, New York 0.11%, Wisconsin 0.03%.

Election history:
1963 - New York City Council (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated
1964 - US President (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated
1965 - New York City Mayor (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated
1970 - Governor of New York (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated
1975 - Berkeley, Calif. City Council (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1980 - US President (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated

Other occupations: house painter, farm equipment factory worker, author

Buried: ?

Notes:
Born in the same town where Absolom Madden West, 1884 VP nominee of the Greenback Party, died
 in 1894.
Opponents in 1965 race included John Lindsay (winner), Abraham Beame, William F. Buckley, and
 Eric Hass
Opponents in 1970 race included Nelson Rockefeller (winner), Arthur Goldberg, and Stephen Emery
Left the Communist Party USA and joined the SWP in 1953
Moved to New York from Chicago in 1960
Ceased being politically active in the 1990s but remained loyal to SWP.

Stephen Emery

Stephen Emery, August 20, 1908 (Passaic, NJ) - September 4, 1995 (Manassas, Va.)

VP candidate for Socialist Labor Party (aka Industrial Government Party) (1948, 1952)

Running mate with nominee (1948): Edward A. Teichert (1904–1974)
Running mate with nominee (1952): Eric Hass (1905–1980)

Popular vote (1948): 29,244 (0.06%)
Popular vote (1952): 30,406 (0.05%)

Electoral vote (1948, 1952): 0/531

The campaign (1948):

The SLP nominated Edward A. Teichert for a second time, but in this round his running mate was Party stalwart Stephen Emery of New York.

The 1948 platform anticipated the Military-Industrial Complex and never-ending war-based economy that President Eisenhower warned the country against over a decade later. The Party also criticizes the "Gestapo-like" tactics of the government efforts to root out "disloyalty."

Just like the Socialist Workers Party 1948 platform, the SLP took a swipe at some of the other Leftist parties, especially as they saw themselves as the only pure Marxists, and all others, including the Soviet government, as poseurs--

The Socialist Labor Party appeals to you to accept the logic of these facts: WAR, FASCISM, AND POVERTY AMIDST PLENTY ARE THE EVIL BROOD OF CAPITALISM. No worker who reaches this conclusion can, without consciously aligning himself with the forces of  reaction, support the parties that have as their aim the preservation of capitalism. In this category, besides the Republicans  and Democrats, we include the "Third Party Progressives" (who acclaim "progressive capitalism"), and the "Liberal," "Labor," "Socialist" and "Communist" reformers. To speak of "progressive capitalism" today is as nonsensical as it would have been to speak of "progressive slavery" in 1860. And to propose capitalist reforms is to help prolong the capitalist cause of war and fascism. The logic of this is inescapable.

The Socialist Labor Party, therefore, calls upon the American workers, and all other enlightened citizens, to repudiate the parties of capitalism, and to support its program for a Socialist reconstruction of society.

In an election year filled with third parties, the SLP placed 7th. With votes recorded in over 20 states they fared the best in Massachusetts (0.26%) and Minnesota (0.21%).

The campaign (1952):

In 1952 the SLP maintained Emery as the running mate but for President they nominated Eric Hass, who would go on to run in three more elections as the Party standard bearer.

The 1952 SLP platform blasts the Korean War, the Soviets, and the Red Scare in America. Some selections--

The Korean war, a senseless war to all but the capitalist and Russian imperialist interests that profit from it, is a tragic consequence of ruling-class confusion and the military approach in international relations.

---

By means of falsehoods and smears, whipped-up hysteria, witch-hunts and loyalty oaths, the capitalist plutocrats are attacking the very heart of American political democracy. They are imposing a "black silence of fear" on millions of once proudly independent and fearlessly outspoken Americans.

The Socialist Labor Party declares that the real target of this un-American attack is not the Communists, but the fundamental rights and civil liberties of the American people. The Communists are merely a convenient and vulnerable target. It has been said, not without logic, that if there were no Communist party in America, the capitalist reaction would organize one.

Eric Hass' effort to rebuilt the SLP were starting to pay off. Although their national result in 1952 was minuscule, they placed higher than usual (5th) and for the first time outpolled their dying rival, the Socialist Party of America. Best showings: New Jersey (0.24%) and Illinois (0.21%).

Election history:
1950 - US Senate (NY) (Socialist Labor Party) - defeated
1953 - New York City Council President (Industrial Government Party) - defeated
1954 - Lt. Governor of New York (Industrial Government Party) - defeated
1957 - New York City Council President (Socialist Labor Party) - defeated
1958 - US Senate (NY) (Socialist Labor Party) - defeated
1961 - New York City Council President (Socialist Labor Party) - defeated
1962 - US Senate (NY) (Socialist Labor Party) - defeated
1965 - New York City Controller (Socialist Labor Party) - defeated
1970 - Governor of New York (Socialist Labor Party) - defeated
1978 - Governor of California (Socialist Labor Party) - defeated

Other occupations: subway dispatcher

Buried: ?

Notes:
The winner in the 1970 Governor of NY race was Nelson Rockefeller.
The winner in the 1978 Governor of Calif. race was Jerry Brown.
Parents were Hungarians who immigrated in 1904.
Ruled off the ballot in the 1958 US Senate race so ran as a write-in.
Still on record being active with SLP in 1989, when he donated $20,000 to the Party.
Was attacked, beaten and robbed by an Army deserter while fishing near Placerville, Calif. in late
 May 1984. Among other things his jaw was broken and his Honda station wagon stolen. Francis
 James Snyder was captured and entered a guilty plea in court.

Symon Gould

Holdridge and Gould

Symon Gould, May 19, 1894 (New York, NY) - November 24, 1963 (New York, NY)

VP candidate for American Vegetarian Party (aka Vegetarian Party) (1948, 1952, 1956)

Running mate with nominee (1948): John Maxwell (1863-1960)
Running mate with nominee (1952): Daniel J. Murphy (1887-1965)
Running mate with nominee (1956): Herbert M. Shelton (1895-1985)

Popular vote (1948): 68 (0.00%)
Popular vote (1952): 0 (0.00%)
Popular vote (1956): 0 (0.00%)

Electoral vote (1948, 1952, 1956): 0/531

The campaign (1948):

Attempting to build on the perceived momentum of America seeing the advantages of a meatless diet as a result of WWII food rationing, vegetarian activist Symon Gould was one of the main forces behind the creation of the American Vegetarian Party in 1947 during the sessions of a American Naturopathic Association meeting. The aims of the Party appeared to be simply for promotional purposes rather than political, since they apparently never attained ballot status in any state during the five presidential elections they existed.

85-year old John Maxwell, who ran a vegetarian restaurant in Chicago, was selected as the Presidential nominee. Along with Peter Cooper, standard-bearer of the Greenback Party in 1876, this age is something of a record for Presidential candidates (Lorenzo Stephen Coffin was also 85 when he was the running mate for the United Christian Party in 1908). One legal problem regarding Maxwell-- he was born in England evidently as a British subject-- making him ineligible to hold the Presidential office. Gould selected himself, or so the story goes, as the running mate.

Wikipedia cites Daniel J. Murphy as the 1948 running mate but all other evidence points to Gould.

Maxwell said he had "tasted no meat for 45 years" and also ran against alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical medicine. Other issues included supporting government ownership of all natural resources, advocating a law prohibiting farmers from spending more than 20% of their labor on raising meat, and a pension of $100 for everyone over the age of 65.

According to Gould, Maxwell "wanted to accomplish something during the campaign" and that was his thinking behind marrying a woman 40 years younger than himself as the election season unfolded.

Gould predicted 5 million votes for the Party: "Three million of these would be the American vegetarians and the remainder of the votes would come from prohibitionist, anti-vivisectionists and anti-cigarette smoking groups. We will also attract other groups of people of similar high moral principle."

During the campaign Gould became embroiled in a public feud with the writer George Bernard Shaw regarding some esoteric differences in vegetarianism.

The campaign (1952):

The original 1952 ticket was headed by frequent party-jumper Herbert C. Holdridge with Gould once again being in the VP slot.

Holdridge, who claimed he had been a vegetarian since 1947, was the only American general who retired during the Second World War. In 1944 he appeared to be in support of the Socialist Party of America but by 1948 the retired general was attempting to gain the Democratic Party nomination for President. By 1952 he was covering all bets-- He was the Presidential nominee of the American Rally for Peace, Abundance and the Constitution (aka the American Rally Party), and he was making moves to be the Democratic Party nominee again, plus he was the nominee of the American Vegetarian Party.

For reasons that are unclear, Holdridge either withdrew or was forced off the ticket in late September/early October, 1952. Holdridge's campaign manager Burr McCloskey claimed the retired general quit because the vegetarians were "making Holdridge out to look as crackpot as they are." In another news source McCloskey said Holdridge was "asked" to resign from the ticket as the AVP had sharp differences of opinion over issues with the parallel American Rally Party campaign and could not endorse those activities or issues. As an aside, McCloskey would later be the VP nominee for the Pioneer Party in 1956.

The retired general continued to campaign, without a running mate, on the American Rally Party and quit that party shortly after Election Day.

At this point with only a month left in the campaign, Daniel J. Murphy was selected as the new substitute Presidential nominee for the American Vegetarian Party. Murphy had lost his left arm and leg decades earlier in an accident as a railroad employee and was now running an artificial limb shop in San Francisco. 

The campaign (1956):

The AVP nominated Herbert M. Shelton for President with Gould being the Party's VP choice for the third election in a row.

Shelton was a naturopath and pacifist. He was arrested, convicted, and jailed many times in his life, once for anti-draft activity during WWI, but most of his legal woes were due to charges of quackery, practicing medicine without a license, and twice for negligent homicide in the course of his "treatments" (1942 and 1978). Apparently Shelton himself didn't take his nomination very seriously.

The AVP platform promoted ideas that were obscure in 1956 but are more widely discussed today such as: "Vegetarianism is synonymous with universal brotherhood and universal peace. Its fundamental principle of 'anti-killing' if generally adopted would banish wars. In furtherance of this ideal, the American Vegetarian Party is unconditionally opposed to the slaughter of animals for sustenance, sport, or style. We contend that these barbaric and uncivilized practices brutalize men and generate in them a blood-lust that ultitmately seems to find an outlet in annihilating wars."

Election history:
1960 - US President (American Vegetarian Party) - defeated
1962 - US Senate (NY) (American Vegetarian Party) - defeated
1964 - US President (American Vegetarian Party) - died before election

Other occupations: editor, Secretary of the Vegetarian Society of New York, founder of the International Film Arts Guild in 1930, founder of American Library Service in 1922,

Buried: ?

Notes:
The winner of the 1962 Senate election was Republican Jacob Javits, a former classmate of Gould's--
 Also in that Senate race was Stephen Emery who also the Socialist Labor VP nominee in 1948 and  1952.
Alleged editor of the American print of the silent film Nosferatu.
Went on a three-week fast on an annual basis.
Jewish by birth, became pro-Israel during a 1949 visit, urging the UK to support US efforts there.
Died of cancer at age 70 two days after President Kennedy was assassinated.                                          In the Liz Taylor/Richard Burton film The Comedians (1967), the actor Paul Ford portrays "Mr. Smith," who was the fictional 1948 Vegetarian Party nominee for President.