Thomas Charles O'Brien (June 19, 1887 – November 22, 1951) was an American attorney and politician who served as District Attorney of

Suffolk County, Massachusetts Suffolk County ( ) is located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 797,936, making it the fourth-most populous county in Massachusetts. The county comprises the cities of Boston ...

and was the United States vice-presidential nominee for the Union Party in the

1936 United States presidential election United States presidential election, Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 3, 1936. In the midst of the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression, the History of the Democratic Party (United States), Dem ...

Early life

O'Brien was born on June 19, 1887, in

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

. He graduated from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

in 1908 and

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

in 1911. Thomas O'Brien identified as

Irish-American Irish Americans () are Irish ethnics who live within in the United States, whether immigrants from Ireland or Americans with full or partial Irish ancestry. Irish immigration to the United States From the 17th century to the mid-19th c ...

and was a practicing Catholic.

Political career

O'Brien was an unsuccessful candidate for the

Massachusetts House of Representatives The Massachusetts House of Representatives is the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, the State legislature (United States), state legislature of Massachusetts. It is composed of 160 members elected from 14 counties each divided into ...

in 1912 and 1913. He was appointed to the state parole board in 1913 and from 1916 to 1919 he was deputy director of prisons. In 1919 he was appointed Boston's commissioner of penal institutions by Mayor Andrew James Peters. In 1922 he was appointed District Attorney of Suffolk County to fill the unexpired term of Joseph C. Pelletier. He was a candidate for Mayor of Boston in 1925. He finished 5th in the 10 candidate field behind Malcolm Nichols, Theodore A. Glynn, Joseph H. O'Neil, and Daniel H. Coakley. In 1926, O'Brien was defeated for reelection by William J. Foley. In 1930 he was a candidate for the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

seat held by William M. Butler. He finished third in the Democratic primary behind Marcus A. Coolidge and Joseph F. O'Connell. In 1936, O'Brien left the Democratic Party to join the Union Party, a political party formed by supporters of Rev.

Charles Coughlin Charles Edward Coughlin ( ; October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979), commonly known as Father Coughlin, was a Canadian-American Catholic Church, Catholic priest based near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the Lit ...

's National Union for Social Justice. He was the party's candidate for vice president of the United States and the United States Senate in Massachusetts. The Union Party's ticket of U.S. Representative William Lemke and O'Brien received 2% of the vote in the presidential election. In the Senate election, O'Brien received 10% and 1.6% of the vote in the Democratic and Republican primaries, respectively, and 7.4% of the vote in the general election on the Union ticket.''Massachusetts Election Statistics 1936'' A longtime labor lawyer, O'Brien served as regional counsel for the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and the

Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS) is a labor union in the United States. It represents workers who install, maintain, and repair railroad traffic control systems. These include switching, signaling, and highway-rail crossing warning sys ...

. He died on November 22, 1951, of a heart ailment.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OBrien, Thomas C 1887 births 1951 deaths 20th-century American politicians American labor lawyers District attorneys in Suffolk County, Massachusetts Harvard Law School alumni Massachusetts lawyers Politicians from Boston Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen people 20th-century American lawyers Union Party (United States) politicians Harvard College alumni