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?

Samuel Herman Friedman

Samuel Herman Friedman, February 20, 1897 (Denver, Colo.) – March 17, 1990 (New York, NY)

VP candidate for Socialist Party of America (1952, 1956)

Running mate with nominee (1952, 1956): Darlington Hoopes (1896–1989)

Popular vote (1952): 20,203 (0.03%)
Popular vote (1956): 2,128  (0.00%)
Electoral vote (1952, 1956): 0/531

The campaign (1952):

Six time Presidential nominee Norman Thomas was done with campaigning for elected office and after 1948 attempted to convince the Socialist Party of America to find other avenues to further the Party's agenda.

There were many factors contributing to the rapid decline of the SPA. To name just a few-- Like several other third parties, they had run (between Debs and then Thomas) personality-driven campaigns where one individual ran for several elections and became the face of the movement. Once that person stepped down after such a long reign the changes became overly dramatic. Also, many of their once radical platform ideas were now accepted as mainstream by most Americans and both major parties, although customized to fit within a capitalist setting. With the advent of television advertising and mass media campaigning the SPA could not hope to match the funds required for such political merchandising. And the increasingly strict requirements for gaining ballot access didn't help.

The SPA leadership agreed with Thomas that it was time cease the national campaigns but the rank and file still wanted a presence in the Presidential elections. Darlington Hoopes, the 1944 VP nominee was nominated for President and the courtly SPA veteran Samuel H. Friedman was selected as his running mate.

The 1952 SPA platform stood against the same military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower (who had been in a position to do something but apparently did not do enough to stop it) would warn America about eight years later.

With votes recorded in 17 states the SPA's best showings were in New Jersey (0.36%) and Connecticut (0.20%). 

The campaign (1956):

The SPA nominated the Hoopes/Friedman ticket again in what would prove to be the SPA's final Presidential campaign.

W.E.B. Du Bois who had supported the Progressive Party in 1948 and 1952 explained in The Nation why he was not voting in 1956. His reasons touch on the SPA and no doubt describes the world view of many other progressives of that era:

    In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no "two evils" exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say. There is no third party. On the Presidential ballot in a few states (seventeen in 1952), a "Socialist" Party will appear. Few will hear its appeal because it will have almost no opportunity to take part in the campaign and explain its platform. If a voter organizes or advocates a real third-party movement, he may be accused of seeking to overthrow this government by "force and violence." Anything he advocates by way of significant reform will be called "Communist" and will of necessity be Communist in the sense that it must advocate such things as government ownership of the means of production; government in business; the limitation of private profit; social medicine, government housing and federal aid to education; the total abolition of race bias; and the welfare state.

    These things are on every Communist program; these things are the aim of socialism. Any American who advocates them today, no matter how sincerely, stands in danger of losing his job, surrendering his social status and perhaps landing in jail. The witnesses against him may be liars or insane or criminals. These witnesses need give no proof for their charges and may not even be known or appear in person. They may be in the pay of the United States Government. A.D.A.'s and "Liberals" are not third parties; they seek to act as tails to kites. But since the kites are self-propelled and radar-controlled, tails are quite superfluous and rather silly.

On the ballot in only half a dozen states the SPA's best showing was in Friedman's native state of Colorado with 0.08%. In New York they gained 82 votes and in Rhode Island a whopping sum of two votes.

Election history:
1921 - New York State Assembly (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1922 - New York State Assembly (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1923 - New York State Assembly (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1926 - New York State Assembly (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1927 - New York State Assembly (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1928 - New York State Senate (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1929 - New York State Assembly (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1930 - New York State Assembly (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1932 - New York State Senate (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1934 - US House of Representatives (NY) (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1936 - New York State Senate (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1941 - New York City Controller (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1942 - Lt. Governor of New York (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1945 - New York City Council President (Socialist Party of America) - defeated
1949 - New York City Council President (Socialist Party of America) - defeated

Other occupations: journalist, editor, labor union activist, public relations agent, high school social science teacher

Buried: Cedar Grove Cemetery (Flushing, NY)

Notes:
Columbia University MA 1940.
Jewish.
Member of the Three Arrows Cooperative Society.
Arrested numerous times in acts of civil disobedience.

Myra Tanner Weiss

Myra Tanner Weiss, May 17, 1917 (Salt Lake City, Utah) – September 13, 1997 (Indio, Calif.)

VP candidate for Socialist Workers Party (aka Militant Workers Party aka Workers Party) (1952, 1956, 1960)

Running mate with nominee (1952, 1956, 1960): Farrell Dobbs (1907-1983)

Popular vote (1952): 10,312 (0.02%)
Popular vote (1956): 7,797 (0.01%)
Popular vote (1960): 40,175 (0.06%)
Electoral vote (1952, 1956): 0/531
Electoral vote (1960): 0/537

The campaign (1952):

Farrell Dobbs was once again nominated for President by the Socialist Workers Party, as he would be in 1956 and 1960. In all three elections his running mate was Myra Tanner Weiss, marking the first time in American history any party nominated the same ticket three elections in a row.

Long a SWP activist in the Los Angeles area, Weiss moved to New York in 1952 and worked as writer for the Militant. Her selection as a running mate was a balancing of the ticket in the sense that Myra and her husband Murry were considered from the Right wing of the Party and had their own distinct following.

The overly long 1952 SWP platform was anti-Stalin, anti-war, proposed the creation of a Labor Party, and demanded an end of the domestic anti-Communist persecutions by the US government.

They were on the ballot in seven states and performed poorly in all of them: New Jersey (0.16%), Wisconsin (0.08%), Minnesota (0.04%), New York (0.03%), Pennsylvania (0.03%), Michigan (0.02%) and Washington (0.01%).

The campaign (1956):

The Party had lost a number of members in the Detroit and Cleveland areas due a leadership dispute involving the definition and direction of Trotskyism.

With the death of Stalin in 1953 and Khrushchev's de-Stalinization efforts underway, the SWP openly courted refugees from the Communist Party USA who were looking for a new political home.

Weiss, ever the purist Trotskyite, attacked the CPUSA as much as she was the major political parties. One news source said she "condemned American Communists as complacent champions of bureaucracy and both Democrats and Republicans as 'big business' parties."

In a miserable election year for third parties in general, the SWP had a result that was more miserable than most. They were on the ballot in only four states but also waged a write-in campaign in California (0.00%): New Jersey (0.16%), Minnesota (0.08%), Pennsylvania (0.04%), and Wisconsin (0.04%).

The campaign (1960):

A small faction had left SWP in 1958 in a disagreement over the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The official Party line did not support the suppression of Hungarians on Trotskyist grounds. The Cuban Revolution was already starting to create further divisions within the SWP, especially as younger political activist recruits joined their ranks.

Murry Weiss suffered a stroke in 1960 around the same time the Weiss' were distancing themselves from the Party. It was dawning on Myra that SWP had some gender issues in their organization and that Marxist men could be just as sexist as capitalist men.

The CPUSA endorsed the Kennedy/Johnson ticket and in doing so took a swipe at the SWP: " ... it would be a still greater error to adopt a negative, defeatist, 'curses-on-both-your-houses' position" as this would "only encourage 'stay-at-home' moods and feed such sects as the SLP or the Trotskyites [i.e. the SWP], who render only lip service to socialist aims."

By the next election Murry and Myra Weiss would no longer be members of the Socialist Workers Party. Eventually they became involved with the Freedom Socialist Party.

The 1960 election results were, relatively speaking, a big upswing for the SWP. The Party was on the ballot in 11 states with New Jersey continuing to be their best showing at 0.41%. They finished with 0.20% in New York and Minnesota.

Election history:
1945 - Mayor of Los Angeles, Calif. (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1948 - US House of Representatives (Calif.) (Independent) - defeated
1949 - Mayor of Los Angeles, Calif. (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1950 - Los Angeles Board of Education (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1950 - US House of Representatives (Calif.) (Independent) - defeated
1953 - Mayor of Los Angeles, Calif. (Nonpartisan) - defeated

Other occupations: author, waitress, migrant worker, cannery worker, labor organizer

Buried: ?

Notes:
One of her opponents in the 1949 mayoral election was Jack B. Tenney, who she later competed with
 in 1952 when he was the VP nominee for the Christian Nationalist Party.
Suffered a severe stroke ca. 1992 and died in a nursing home.
Joined the Workers Party in Salt Lake City 1935, became a founding member of the Socialist
 Workers Party 1938.
Organizer of the Los Angeles SWP 1942-1952.
Brooklyn College BA 1969, NYU MA 1972
Originally studied to be a chemist but realized she might be employed to create weapons so she
 dropped that field of study.
Dropped out of SWP ca. 1963, was part of the Committee for a Revolutionary Socialist Party
 1978-1980, then joined the Freedom Socialist Party.
#11 on the "Most Famous Person Named Myra" list on playback.fm
Was socially and politically connected with Lyndon Larouche in the 1960s.
" ...Murray and Myra were typical party leaders, intolerant to a fault and convinced of their own
 intellectual and political superiority to everybody else. At a big cocktail party in the 1950s, Junius
 was having a pleasant chat with Alger Hiss who spotted Myra Tanner Weiss. Also at the party was a
 left-wing Labour Party MP who Hiss mischievously decided to introduce to Myra. He brought the
 two together and within a matter of minutes the two of them were castigating each other loudly and
 had drawn a circle of onlookers about them, as if a fist-fight was going on. Hiss stood on the
 sidelines enjoying the spectacle thoroughly."--Synopsis of an interview with Junius Scales.
Descended from Mormon pioneers.

Charlotta Amanda Spears Bass

 Bass compared to major party VP nominees Richard Nixon and John Sparkman

 During her acceptance speech with Hallinan

 With Hallinan and Paul Robeson

 With Robeson

Charlotta Amanda Spears Bass, February 14, 1874 (Sumter, SC) – April 12, 1969 (Los Angeles, Calif.)

VP candidate for Progressive Party (aka Independent Progressive Party) (1952)

Running mate with nominee: Vincent Hallinan (1896–1992)

Popular vote: 140,746 (0.23%)
Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

After being badgered by the FBI and House UnAmerican Activities Committee and watching their 1948 leader Henry Wallace walk out in 1950 due to differences in foreign policy, the Progressive Party experienced a mass exodus in the short time since the previous Presidential election. Wallace came to support the Korean War and many of the more centrist members of the Party were not comfortable with the amount of Communist participation in their organization. By 1952 the Progressive Party was in the control of their Left flank.

For President in 1952, the Progressive Party nominated San Francisco-based attorney Vincent Hallinan who at the time was serving a short prison sentence in McNeil Island, Washington as a contempt of court charge while defending Harry Bridges. When he was released on August 17, 1952, a large crowd of supporters greeted him with a rally at the Steilacoom ferry dock. One of them had a sign that read, "From the Big House to the White House."

The running mate was a historic choice. Charlotta Bass was the first African American woman to be nominated for Vice-President. Her name was placed in nomination by Paul Robeson and seconded by W.E.B. Du Bois.

Sources vary on the date of her birth, but it seems she was 78-years old at the time she was nominated. She was mainly known as the publisher and editor of the California Eagle and used her influence to crusade for civil rights in many forms: racial, housing, labor, and voting as well as highlighting the abuses of police brutality. She was a registered Republican, even a Willkie organizer in 1940, until 1948 when she helped form the Progressive Party.

Most of her career had been made in California, but in 1951 she moved to New York.

Here are some excerpts from her acceptance speech:

I shall tell you how I come to stand here. I am a Negro woman. My people came before the Mayflower. I am more concerned with what is happening to my people in my country than in pouring out money to rebuild a decadent Europe for a new war. We have lived through two wars and seen their promises turn to bitter ashes. Two Negroes were the first Americans to be decorated for bravery in France in World War I, that war that was fought to make the world safe for democracy. But when it ended, we discovered we were making Africa safe for exploitation by the very European powers whose freedom and soil we had defended. And that war was barely over when a Negro soldier, returning to his home in Georgia, was lynched almost before he could take off his uniform. That war was scarcely over before my people were stoned and shot and beaten in a dozen northern cities. The guns were hardly silenced before a reign of terror was unloosed against every minority that fought for a better life.

...

Yes, we fought to end Hitlerism. But less than 7 years after the end of that war, I find men who lead my government paying out my money and your money to support the rebirth of Hitlerism in Germany to make it a willing partner in another war. We thought to destroy Hitlerism—but its germ took root right here. I look about me, at my own people—at all colored peoples all over the world. I see the men who lead my government supporting oppression of the colored peoples of the earth who today reach out for the independence this nation achieved in 1776.

Yes, it is my government that supports the segregation by violence practiced by a Malan in South Africa, sends guns to maintain a bloody French rule in Indo-China, gives money to help the Dutch repress Indonesia, props up Churchill’s rule in the Middle East and over the colored peoples of Africa and Malaya. This week Churchill’s general in Malaya terrorized a whole village for refusing to act as spies for the British, charging these Malyan and Chinese villagers who enjoyed no rights and no privileges—and I quote him literally—“for failing to shoulder the responsibility of citizenship.” But neither the Malayan people—nor the African people who demonstrate on April 6—will take this terror lying down. They are fighting back.

...

I have fought not only for my people. I have fought and will continue to fight unceasingly for the rights and privileges of all people who are oppressed and who are denied their just share of the world’s goods their labor produces. I have walked and will continue to walk in picket lines for the right of all men and women, of all races, to organize for their own protection and advancement. I will continue to cry out against police brutality against any people, as I did in the infamous zoot suit riots in Los Angeles in 1944, when I went into dark alleys and reached scared and badly beaten Negro and Mexican American boys, some of them children, from the clubs and knives of city police. Nor have I hesitated in the face of that most unAmerican Un-American Activities Committee—and I am willing to face it again. And so help me God, I shall continue to tell the truth as I know it and believe it as a progressive citizen and a good American.


...

The Progressive Party in 1952 was endorsed by the American Labor Party and for the second time in a row, the Communist Party USA. When Bass was accused of communist sympathies and "leaning to the Left" she replied, "How can I lean to the left when I am advocating what is right?"

The campaign suffered a blow in early September when newspaper supplement magazine This Week published an anti-Communist anti-Soviet article by Henry Wallace entitled "Where I was Wrong."

On the ballot in 28 states, the Progressive Party had a pretty feeble result especially compared to their 1948 showing. As bad as it was, they still placed third nationally. Best states: New York (0.90%), Maryland (0.81%), Oregon (0.53%), and California (0.46%) and it rapidly declines after that.

The Progressive Party disbanded in 1955. Hallinan was sent back to McNeil Island in 1954 to 1955 on a tax evasion conviction. Bass was considered a "security risk" by the FBI well into her 90s.

But Charlotta Bass had the last word, "Win or lose, we win by raising the issues."

Election history:
1945 - City Council, Los Angeles, Calif. - defeated
1950 - US House of Representatives (Calif.) (Independent Progressive) - defeated

Other occupations: newspaper editor and publisher, western regional director for Wendell Willkie 1940, National Chairman of the Sojourners for Truth and Justice 1952

Buried: Evergreen Cemetery (Los Angeles, Calif.)

Notes:
Buried in the same cemetery as Eddie Anderson, Matthew Beard Jr., and Katherine Grant.
Winner of the 1950 House race was Sam Yorty.
Wrote an autobiography, Forty Years (1960)
Her birth year is sometimes given as 1879 or 1880 and her birthplace as Rhode Island.
First African American woman to serve on a grand jury.
Believed to be the First African American woman to publish a newspaper.

George Washington (Spirit)

George Washington (Spirit), physical body: February 22, 1732 (Westmoreland County, Va.) - December 14, 1799 (Mount Vernon, Va.) / spirit form: December 14, 1799 - present

VP candidate for Washington Peace Party (1952)

Running mate with nominee: Ellen Linea Wahlquist Jensen (1897-1991)

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

The campaign:

The identity of the VP nominee for the Washington Peace Party was never made public, so I am entering the realm of conjecture here. Although stating the running mate could very well have been the spirit of George Washington might come across as a snarky wiseguy guess, in the context of this political party's world view it is actually a reasonable and likely assumption.

The Washington Peace Party was formed Aug. 13, 1952 in Miami, Fla. The nominee was Ellen Linea Wahlquist Jensen.

Ellen Linea Wahlquist was born to Swedish immigrants in Chicago, Oct. 29, 1897. By WWI she was in Washington State where she married Norwegian boat builder Paul Jensen in the city of Everett on July 31, 1918. He was a decade older than she. They had one son and lived in Seattle's Ravenna district. Something happened in the 1930s, either Paul died or the marriage fell apart, but by the late 1930s Ellen was on her own, earning a living as a stenographer and working at the University of Washington Law Library as an assistant.

At some point she also became a psychic and an astrologer, but it almost seemed like the press was more amused at the fact that she was a grandmother of three as if that compounded the conventional wisdom that it was absurd to take any female candidate seriously.

The Party spokesperson, "Executive Secretary" and resident of the apartment complex address that was also Party headquarters was Helen I. Hoag of Miami. Hoag, who at some time claimed an encounter with a UFO, would go on to found the Awareness Research Foundation, Inc. and compiled teachings on astrology, Atlantis, UFOs, Lord Sananda, ESP, metaphysics, and past lives. She also was the author and merchandiser in the esoteric market of a number of books in the coming decades with titles like: My Lives on Atlantis (1969) -- My Visits to Other Planets: the Sun, Moon and the Star, Capella (1970) -- What Happens Between Lives (1969) -- The 3 Missing Planets (1974). Her Foundation moved to North Carolina in later years.

The Party chair was Louis C. Morris of Hallandale, Fla. who also claimed to be a Cherokee named Chief White Eagle. It is possible an investigation could potentially reveal a Pretendian given the circumstances.

Ellen Linea W. Jensen, as she was billed, was rather cagey about her running mate. On Sept. 17 the media reported, "She has refused to identify the name of the man who is her vice presidential running mate." And on Oct. 29 this mysterious VP nominee was out of the race as the press told readers, "... that her party is in process of selecting another Vice Presidential candidate. The original nominee became ill and had to retire."

Without getting into specifics, Hoag described Jensen as, "a grandmother who has been working for the best interests of our country -- without pay -- for many, many years." Jensen told the press she communicated with George Washington "on the other side" and followed his advice. She also said she was a "Himalayan Master" in a previous life.

The Party slogan was "Light Around the World." The platform called for "world peace and lower taxes." Jensen promised "to stamp out Communism within nine minutes of my inauguration." The Party supported the concept of no government policymakers except native-born Americans. And bringing up the Father of Our Country again, Hoag said it was time to "return to the principles voiced and practiced by our country's founder and first president, George Washington -- no foreign entanglements."

In spite of Party statements that the Horoscope favored Jensen's election, the Washington Peace Party failed to gain ballot status in any state and vanished after the 1952 election. Later in life Jensen lived somewhere in Snohomish County north of Seattle, and died within King County Oct. 13, 1991.

Election history (physical body):
1757 - House of Burgesses (Va.) - defeated
1758-1765 - House of Burgesses (Va.)
1789-1797 - US President (Independent)

Other occupations (physical body): surveyor, planter, soldier, US President

Buried (physical body): Mount Vernon, Va.

Notes:
Small world dept.: Paul and Ellen Jensen in the 1920s lived on the same street in the Ravenna District only a quarter mile away from where I lived when I was a grad student at the UW 1980. When Ellen was on her own in the 1940s she lived in an apartment even closer to another house in the U District where I lived in the 1970s. 

Willie Isaac Bass

Willie Isaac Bass, September 5, 1896 (Hornet, Sampson County, NC) - November 23, 1966 (Fayetteville, NC)

VP candidate for Church of God Party (aka Church of God Bible Party) (1952)

Running mate with nominee: Homer A. Tomlinson (1892-1968)

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

The campaign:

The Church of God Party was the brainchild of Homer Aubrey Tomlinson, who was the son of Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson who founded his own independent Church of God in 1922. When the father died in 1943 his sons Homer and Milton engaged in a power struggle to take over the family business and Milton emerged victorious. So Homer went out and started his own splinter of a splinter church. He also had gathered some experience in the advertising business and developed a natural flair for publicity.

Tomlinson claimed he started the campaign with a fast and said Gen. Eisenhower was his first choice for his running mate. He initially made overtures to the Prohibition Party to run as their Presidential nominee but was rebuffed. His true running mate was found in a member of his Church flock with mechanic, WWI veteran and some time minister Willie Isaac Bass of North Carolina.

Bass was frequently alongside Tomlinson during some of the publicity stunts, such as actually turning swords into plowshares using a forge or picketing a major party convention. 

The Church of God Party believed in abolishing the line between church and state, instead of paying taxes citizens should tithe, and two new Cabinet positions needed to be created-- Sec. of Righteousness and Sec. of The Holy Bible.

As a sign of more outlandish things to come in his subsequent runs for President, in Richmond, Va. the media reported that Tomlinson, "will proclaim a kingdom of West Africa and anoint a Richmond barber as its king in a ceremony at Nathalie, Va. ..." In future hindsight, 1952 would be Homer Tomlinson's most subdued campaign for President compared to the others awaiting the nation.

On Oct. 17, 1952 Tomlinson told the press, "I am depending on miracles to bring me to the White House." Since he was not on a single ballot he was asking for a lot even if he did garner more publicity than some other third parties that were officially listed. Undoubtedly the Church of God Party received some write-in votes, but they have been unrecorded.

A month after the election Tomlinson went to Korea and offered his services to the US government, or that of Willie I. Bass if they preferred, in negotiating a peace treaty to end the war.

Election history: none

Other occupations: mechanic, inventor, sailor in US Navy WWI, Church of God minister

Buried: Lafayette Memorial Park (Fayetteville, NC)

Notes:
Applied for a patent concerning an amphibious vehicle, 1948
Birthdate sometimes given as Nov. 3, 1895 or 1896.
Minister in Oakwood, Va. 1942.

Harry Flood Byrd Sr.

 With Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson

Harry Flood Byrd Sr., June 10, 1887 (Martinsburg, W. Va.) – October 20, 1966 (Berryville, Va.)

VP candidate for America First Party (1952)

Running mate with nominee: Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)

Popular vote: 233 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

Fired General Douglas MacArthur was the belle of the ball for the Right wing in 1952, but the extreme conservatives were unable to unite in his name. MacArthur was nominated by the Christian Nationalist Party, Constitution Party, America First Party, and endorsed by Mary Kennery's American Party. Each group had different running mates and in some cases multiple "substitute" Vice-Presidential candidates in the same party. MacArthur was on the ballot twice running under two different party names in some places. The General never accepted any of the nominations, but on the other hand did not take legal steps to remove himself from the ballot.

Lar Daly (1912-1978) who would become better known in future elections as a perennial candidate garbed in an Uncle Sam costume, had been an activist to help Gen. MacArthur gain the Republican nomination in several election cycles including in 1952. When that failed he turned his efforts to running the General on the America First Party ticket in August. The name of the party was originally what the Christian Nationalist Party called itself, but Daly made it clear his organization had no connection with Gerald L.K. Smith.

Daly took the liberty of nominating Sen. Harry Flood Byrd Sr. (without any consultation) as the General's running mate. Byrd was an influential Virginia Democrat who was considered Right wing, anti-union, and pro-segregation. He was spending 1952 with a focus on his re-election to the Senate and had once again watched his name be put into nomination for the Presidential nomination at the Democratic convention only to watch it go down in flames. Byrd did not endorse Truman in 1948 and would not endorse Stevenson in 1952, primarily due to their progressive views on civil rights.

The America First Party of 1952's emblem was the turkey, which is rather fitting for a ticket named MacArthur/Byrd.

Daly, as the mouthpiece for the AFP, called for the use of atomic weapons to end the Korean War, a withdrawal of the US from the United Nations, and was "100 per cent behind" Sen. Joseph McCarthy's efforts to persecute Communists.

Unlike MacArthur, Byrd actually took steps to have his name removed from the AFP ticket by  making a formal request Sept. 3, 1952.

On Oct. 11 Lar Daly announced the MacArthur for President Committee had been changed to the MacArthur for Eisenhower and America First Committee. He endorsed Eisenhower and said he would work to have MacArthur appointed Secretary of State. But it was too late to have the MacArthur/Byrd ticket removed from the ballot in Missouri, where they would be competing for votes with the MacArthur/Tenney ticket.

In Missouri the America First Party Presidential ticket won 233 votes. As near as I can ascertain all of their other votes across the nation were write-ins. Most modern sources have consolidated all of the various little splinter MacArthur political parties into a generic "MacArthur/Byrd" category but it was actually the Christian Nationalist Party ticket with Jack B. Tenney, a case in which the VP nominee was actually enthusiastic, where the old General gained the strongest following, such as it was.

Election history:
1915-1925 - Virginia State Senate (Democratic)
1926-1930 - Governor of Virginia (Democratic)
1932 - Democratic nomination for US President - defeated
1933-1965 - US Senate (Democratic)
1944 - Democratic nomination for US President - defeated
1948 - Democratic nomination for US President - defeated
1952 - Democratic nomination for US President - defeated
1956 - US President (States' Rights Party of Kentucky) - defeated
1956 - US President (Independent (Miss., SC)) - defeated
1960 - US President (Democratic) - defeated

Other occupations: newspaper publisher, apple orchard manager, turnpike operator 1908-1918, Virginia State Fuel Commissioner 1918

Buried: Mount Hebron Cemetery (Winchester, Va.)

Notes:
Member of the Byrd political dynasty in Virginia and a leader of the "Byrd Organization."
Born in the same community just two weeks apart from his fellow VA Senator Absolom Willis
 Robertson (Rev. Pat Robertson's father)
Episcopalian
Family moved to Winchester, Va. when he was an infant.
Brother of Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.
Retired from the Senate Nov. 1965 for health reason, died of cancer Oct. 1966.
In 1960 received 15 Electoral College votes from one faithless and 14 unpledged electors for
 President (1 Okla., 8 Miss., 6 Ala.)

John Breckinridge Tenney

 Tenney appearance in Walla Walla, Wash.

John Breckinridge Tenney, April 1, 1898 (St. Louis, Mo.) – November 4, 1970 (Glendale, Calif.)

VP candidate for Christian Nationalist Party (1952)

Running mate with nominee: Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)

Popular vote: 10,790 (0.01%)
Electoral vote: 0/531

The campaign:

Fired General Douglas MacArthur was the belle of the ball for the Right wing in 1952, but the extreme conservatives were unable to unite in his name. MacArthur was nominated by the Christian Nationalist Party, Constitution Party, America First Party, and endorsed by Mary Kennery's American Party. Each group had different running mates and in some cases multiple "substitute" Vice-Presidential candidates in the same party. MacArthur was on the ballot twice running under two different party names in some places. The General never accepted any of the nominations, but on the other hand did not take legal steps to remove himself from the ballot.

The Christian Nationalist Party was still under the control of Gerald L.K. Smith-- Disciples of Christ minister, former isolationist now promoting fighting international communism, fascist sympathizer, anti-Semite, white supremacist, and Holocaust denier. Long an admirer of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Smith would not allow the old soldier to fade away and the Party nominated him for President whether he wanted it or not.

For Vice-President the CNP nominated John Breckinridge "Jack" Tenney. A former Leftist Democrat and socialist sympathizer who was actually investigated himself in the late 1930s for being "subversive" changed gears overnight in 1944-- and became famous as a Republican Red-hunter who pushed a policy to require loyalty oaths from public employees. In June 1952 Jack B. Tenney had lost the Republican primary for Congress in his California district. Gerald L.K. Smith had backed him but Sen. Richard Nixon supported the eventual winner. Apparently Tenney was a bit extreme even for  Nixon.

So with no congressional campaign to run, and with MacArthur declining to participate, Tenney threw himself into the election with an anti-Communist and anti-Semitic message. It was basically the VP nominee's campaign.

The Party stated they were making efforts to obtain ballot status in 19 states but fell a bit short. They made the cut in Arkansas, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington. Two electors in New Mexico announced they were backing out. The CNP also launched an energetic write-in effort, mainly in California.

The MacArthur/Tenney ticket had a fairly miserable showing but it was more successful than the other Right-wing MacArthur parties. Well over half of their count (not including write-ins) came from Washington State, where the CNP placed third with 7290 votes (0.66%). Tenney had actually spent time campaigning in the Evergreen State.

Election history:
1937-1943 - California State Assembly (Democrat)
1943-1955 - California State Senate (Democratic/Republican)
1944 - Republican primary for US Senate (Calif.) - defeated
1949 - Republican primary for US Senate (Calif.) - defeated
1949 - Mayor of Los Angeles, Calif. - defeated
1952 - Republican primary for US House of Representatives (Calif.) - defeated
1954 - Republican primary for California State Senate - defeated
1962 - Republican primary for US House of Representatives (Calif.) - defeated

Other occupations: composer, musician, attorney, soldier in WWI, FDR elector (Calif.) 1940, Chair of the California Committee on Un-American Activities 1941-1949, Chair of the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities, City Attorney for Cabazon, Calif., author of several virulently anti-Communist and anti-Semitic books

Buried: Montecito Memorial Park (Colton, Calif.)

Notes:
Composer of "Mexicali Rose"
Family moved to California ca. 1908.
Moved to Banning, Calif. 1959. Last lived in Grand Terrace, Calif.