PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26813, 19 August 1952, Page 7

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

I Progressive Party Candidates

(Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, August 17. The Progressive Party leader, Mr Vincent Hallinan, the second former convict ever to run for the Presidency of the United States, stepped from a Federal prison boat at Steilacoom to-day after serving five months of a six-months-’ term for contempt ef court when acting in defence of the Labour leader, Harry Bridges. Mr Hallinan’s candidacy is reminiscent of that of the other former con—vict candidate, Mr Eugene Debs, who was the Socialist Party’s choice five times between 1900 and 1920. Mr Debs was gaoled during the 1894 railway strike. He conducted national campaigns while behind bars and became involved in civil rights disputes >which found their way to the Supreme Court. The preliminaries to Mr Hallinan’s campaign were conducted by his wife during his imprisonment. He will return to San Francisco today to launch formally his campaign with Mrs Charlotta Bass, a Negro leader who is the Progressive Viceresidential candidate. Mr Hallinan said: “The two maior parties have sold everyone down the river—labouring men, negroes, everyone.

“We have to give the country back to the people. I thjnk the Progressive Party will do much better than the other parties think, or than the people of the Progressive Party think.

We don’t have to win. If we get 3-000 000 votes we will have put a block in the road to war.” He said his party’s platform would have this theme: “Get out of Korea at once.”