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American Party | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Gilbert O. Nations |
| Founded | 1924; 102 years ago (1924) |
| Dissolved | 1924; 102 years ago (1924) |
| Ideology |
|
TheAmerican Party of 1924 was a short-livedAmericanpolitical party.
It met inColumbus, Ohio in June 1924, with 27 delegates present.Anti-Catholic activist former judgeGilbert O. Nations was nominated on the first ballot forPresident of the United States, with 20 votes to 7 forPennsylvania GovernorGifford Pinchot, whose supporters announced that he had declined the party's nomination, insisting that he preferred to work within theRepublican Party. Former California congressmanCharles Hiram Randall was nominated for vice-president, with 16 votes to 10 for Georgia congressmanWilliam D. Upshaw; Upshaw supporters announced that he planned to seek theDemocratic nomination for that office, and (failing that) to seek re-election to Congress. There were also calls for a merger with theProhibition Party; more than one delegate was also a delegate to the Prohibition national convention scheduled to be held in the same city in a few days. The Prohibition Party would reject the call for merger, nominating its own slate instead.[1] Randall later declined to run, in order to concentrate on a race for Congress in California on both the American and Prohibition party tickets;[2] and the national committee selected Leander L. Pickett, a former member of the Prohibition Party in Kentucky, as the vice-presidential nominee.
Theparty platform adopted called fortreaties looking to outlaw war; forcensorship of foreign-language newspapers, prohibiting "foreign schools" from disseminating foreign propaganda, and restriction ofimmigration; for the limitation of excessive wealth; for more stringent laws againstpolygamy,white slavery andkidnapping; for more effective laws againstelection fraud; and for stricter law enforcement, especially ofProhibition.
The convention called for establishments of organizations in all state, of a nationalexecutive committee, and of a national committee composed of one man and one woman from each state.[3]
The American Party of 1924 was tagged as theKu Klux Klan party;[1] although its leaders denied this, they did announce that "counsels of the 'invisible empire' would be needed in the coming campaign, and would be given first consideration in all deliberations". Pickett would be particularly outspoken in denouncing national political figures who had denounced the Klan.
The party was only on the ballot inWashington State,[4]Tennessee,[5]Kentucky,[6]Florida,[7]West Virginia,[8]Pennsylvania,[9] andNew Jersey. Its total vote in these seven states was 23,393, or only 0.08 percent of the votes polled in all forty-eight states, with the majority coming from Washington and Pennsylvania.
