Samuel Thorne Nicholson, February 2, 1852 (Halifax County, NC) - May? 1933 (Washington, DC?)
VP candidate for Union Reform Party (aka Union Reform for Direct Legislation Party) (1900)
Running mate with nominee: Seth H. Ellis (1830-1904)
Popular vote: 5696 (0.04%)
Electoral vote: 0/447
The campaign:
Originating as a regional party in Ohio, the Union Reform Party had the lofty goal of being an umbrella organization for all the reform movements in the USA. It didn't work out that way. It should not be confused with the earlier Union Reform Party of South Carolina.
With the campaign slogan of "The People Shall Rule," their single-issue platform supported the initiative and referendum process. The Party also ran candidates for several other offices in Ohio and Illinois. In this election former Prohibition Party VP Henry Adams Thompson (1880) ran under the Union Reform Party banner for US Congress in Ohio.
They were on the ballot in Ark., Ill., Ind., Md., and Ohio-- the Buckeye State giving them the vast majority of their total which is no surprise since it was also the home state of Ellis. Since Nicholson was a resident of Pennsylvania in 1900 he apparently had to write-in the vote for his own ticket.
The single-issue where the Union Reform Party was centered was quickly co-opted by the mainstream political process and with that the party with the unfortunate acronym of URP quickly evaporated.
Election history:
1900 - Union Reform Party nomination for US President - defeated
Other occupations: farming, insurance, publisher of the Ec-lec-tic, Secretary of the Good Government League, Secretary of the National Good Citizenship League, manager of American Law and Credit Service.
Buried: ?
Notes:
A Democrat prior to joining the Union Reform Party in 1899.
If elected, Nicholson would have become President upon the death of Ellis on June 23, 1904.
However, Ellis died from an accident involving a cherry tree, and the probability of that event
actually happening to a US President is fairly slim.
Studied law but never practiced.
