The nation’s oldest third party -- which had its greatest success in Florida -- nominated a presidential candidate at the end of last week, continuing a tradition which started in 1872.
The Prohibition Party nominated Jim Hedges, who served two terms as the tax assessor of Thompson, Pa., for president on Friday. Hedges will hope to improve on the showing of Lowell "Jack" Fellure who was the party’s presidential candidate in 2012. Fellure took less than 600 votes.
Hedges, like many of the activists in the party, is very knowledgeable of his party’s history and has led the Partisan Prohibition Historical Society which educates the public on a unique slice of American political history. Originally Greg Seltzer was going to be the nominee but he was appointed by Gov. Larry Hogan, R-Md., to the Maryland elections board and bowed off the ticket.
While he won’t be much of a factor in next year’s election, Hedges is continuing a longstanding American political tradition. Founded in 1869 and consistently standing against the legalization of alcoholic drinks, the Prohibition Party has been running presidential candidates since 1872 when it nominated attorney and reformer James Black against President Ulysses S. Grant. At the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century, the party often pulled more than 200,000 votes in presidential contests as they ran strong candidates like abolitionist and Civil War Gen. Clinton Fisk, former Gov. John St. John of Kansas, former Gov. Frank Hanly of Indiana and California pioneer John Bidwell.
But with the introduction of the 18th Amendment in 1920, the Prohibition Party declined as a national power and even the 21st Amendment, which ended prohibition in 1933, did not rehabilitate the party’s fortunes. Since then, the party has not been a factor in national elections.
Still, the party did have one huge success in a statewide election and it happened here in Florida. Sidney Catts, one of the most colorful figures in Florida political history, ran for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1916 and won -- only to have the party bosses take the nod away from him. Catts, who had been a preacher, ran for governor on the Prohibition Party line and won -- the only time a third-party candidate won one of the major statewide elections here in the Sunshine State.
But once in office, Catts joined back with the Democrats, one of the many contradictions in his political career. He was a rabid anti-Catholic who was fine when one of his children married a Catholic. Add in Catts being a reformer who faced corruption charges and an outsider who spent a good deal of his life running for office, and Catts proved a bewildering figure who represented the best and the worst of the Sunshine State when he came to power.
The party also won two congressional elections, but when he was elected in 2001, Hedges was the first Prohibition Party candidate to win an election since 1959.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
