The Union Party was a short-lived

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

in the

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, formed in 1935 by a coalition of radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, old-age

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advocate Francis Townsend, and Gerald L. K. Smith, who had taken control of Huey Long's Share Our Wealth (SOW) movement after Long's assassination in 1935. Each of those people hoped to channel their wide followings into support for the Union Party, which proposed a populist alternative to the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...

reforms of

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

during the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

. The party nominated a ticket consisting of Republican Congressman William Lemke and labor attorney Thomas C. O'Brien in the 1936 presidential election. Running against Republican nominee Alf Landon, Roosevelt won a second term with over 60% of the popular vote, while Lemke won just under 2% of the popular vote. The Union Party collapsed after the 1936 elections. Lemke served as a Republican Congressman until his death in 1950, while Coughlin and Townsend receded from national politics. Smith later founded the Christian Nationalist Crusade and became a prominent proponent of

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Background

Many observers at the time felt that there was a place for a party more radical than Roosevelt and the Democrats but still non-

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

in the political spectrum of the time. Newton Jenkins's campaign in the 1935 Chicago mayoral election acted as an informal test-run for the fledgling movement behind the Union Party. ouciant.com/2017/01/nazi-spies-and-american-patriots/ Nazi Spies and American “Patriots” By John L. Spivak/ref>

Rumored political aspirations of Huey Long

Although many people expected Huey Long, the colorful Democratic senator from Louisiana, to run as a third-party candidate with his "Share Our Wealth" program as his platform, his bid was cut short when he was assassinated in September 1935. Prior to Long's death, leading contenders for the role of the sacrificial 1936 candidate included Senators Burton K. Wheeler (D-Montana) and William E. Borah (R-Idaho), and

Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

Floyd B. Olson (FL-Minnesota). After the assassination, however, the two senators lost interest in the idea (Borah ran as a Republican, garnering only a few delegates and losing the nomination to Kansas governor Alf Landon) and Olson was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer.

Problems and controversies

The Union Party suffered from a multiplicity of problems almost from the moment of its inception. A primary one was that each of the party's three principal leaders seemingly saw himself, not its presidential nominee William Lemke, as the real power figure and natural leader of the party. His charisma attracted more people than did the other candidates. Another was that each man's movement was largely held together by personality more than a truly cohesive ideology: in the case of Coughlin and Townsend their own personalities; in the case of Smith, the memory of the late Huey Long's charismatic personality. Smith himself was considered a far less charismatic figure. Some critics charged that the Union Party was in fact controlled by Father Coughlin, a former Roosevelt supporter who had broken with Roosevelt and by 1936 had become an

antisemite Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

. Smith had also turned to antisemitism, which was not consistent with the views of Long, Townsend, and Lemke, and reduced the appeal of the group among many progressives. The Union Party attracted modest support from populists on both sides of the political spectrum who were unhappy with Roosevelt and from the remnants of earlier third parties such as the Farmer-Labor Party. Others such as ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...

'' magazine were wary of the new party and backed Roosevelt. Presaging more recent debates over the Reform Party, the Green Party, H. Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader, some falsely considered the party either a left-wing spoiler party which would hurt Roosevelt, or an unworkable alliance between left-wing and right-wing populists. More traditional parties on the left such as the Socialist Party denounced the Union Party.

1936 presidential nominee

William Lemke, a U.S. Congressman from

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, was chosen as the party's nominee for the 1936 presidential election. The vice-presidential nominee was Thomas C. O'Brien, a labor lawyer from Boston.

Other notable candidates

Jacob S. Coxey of Coxey's Army fame, socialist leader and frequent independent candidate for the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

, ran for Congress in 1936 on the Union Party ticket in Ohio's 16th District. He received 2,384 votes or 1.6% of the vote (4th place). Landon Nobman, an army colonel and former Democratic candidate for the 1930 United States Senate election in Alabama, received 45.9% in Alabama's 2nd congressional district in the 1936 United States House of Representatives elections, the highest result ever achieved in the Party's history.

Demise

The Union Party was disbanded shortly after the 1936 elections. Presidential nominee Lemke continued to serve in Congress as a Republican, and died in office while serving an eighth term. Father Coughlin announced his retirement from the airwaves immediately after the disappointing returns of the 1936 election, but returned to the air within a couple of months; upon U.S. entry into

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the

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ordered Father Coughlin to retire from the airwaves and return to his duties as a parish priest, and he died in obscurity in 1979. Townsend, already quite elderly, saw his movement largely supplanted by the enactment of

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the next year and also largely became quite obscure afterwards, although he lived until 1960. Smith became even more of a radical fringe figure who eventually became an early proponent of

. He died in 1976.

Other namesakes

In the 1864 presidential election the Republican Party of incumbent President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

ran as the "National Union Party" or "Union Party". The name was a reference to the Union faction of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. Coughlin took the Union label for his own party, comparing the "financial slavery" of the 1930s to the "physical slavery" of the 1860s. In the 1980 presidential election, John B. Anderson's independent bid for the presidency against

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

and

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

was in many states run on the party ballot line of the "National Union Party".Pollitt, Katha, "Down for the Count", The Nation
(December 16, 2000) Anderson won 6.6% of the popular vote and no electoral votes.

References

Events Quarterly https://web.archive.org/web/20061112171139/http://www.eventsquarterly.com/7ed/15.html