CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENCY

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26870, 24 October 1952, Page 9

CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENCY

Colourful Minor Parties a w NEW YORK. October 22. At least 17 candidates, in addition to Mr Adlai Stevenson and General Eisenhower, are seeking the Presidency of the United States. Their names will appear on the ballot papers -—though not in every State—on November 4, but their campaigns will not affect the final result. The activities of these candidates are rarely reported, except by the local newspapers in their own areas. Most of them and their backers have little money to spend on campaigning, Thev are men who. like the Demo, cratic and Republican standard bearers. were nominated with solemn ceremony at formal political convenSt 01 ?? .! Q, ne of them wants to turn the united States into a nation of vegetarians. Another presses for the return of prohibition. The most conspicuous of these groups is the extreme Left-wing Progressiva Party, founded by Mr Henry Wallace before the 1948 election, but repudiated by him this year as a “Communist front.” Its candidate is Mr Vincent Hallinan, a San Francisco lawyer, who recently served a prison sentence for contempt of Court during the perjury trial of the waterfront labour leader Harrv Bridges. Mr Hallinan s main strength is in New York and California, but he is not expected to get more than 1 per cent, of the votes In these two States. Another important group from the point of view of its prestige is the Socialist Party, whose leader, Mr Norman Thomas—a respected public figure—abandoned the race after trying to become President for the last quarter of a century. He has handed over to Mr Darlington Hoopes, a member of the Pennsylvania State Legislature. who believes he will attract a substantial protest vote from the moderate left wing. Perhaps the most colourful of the minor candidates is Brigadier-General Herbert Holdridge, the candidate of the Vegetarian Party. His campaign speeches are often greeted with cries of “Nuts to you. General.” He graduated from West Point in I°l7 with General Matthew Ridgway. the Supreme Allied Commander ’n Europe, is firmly a pacifist and opposes the slaughter “of any living thing.” Greenback Party The Greenback party for years has run on a platform favouring the abolition of private banks and government bonds, and advocating the issuance of paper money pnbacked by public reserves. Its candidate. 72-year-old Fred Proehl, a Seattle grocer, says that his campaigns help his business. Other parties contesting the Presidential election are:

(1) The Church ot the Gold Bible. Its candidate. Bishop Homer Tomlinson. general overseer of the Church of God. hopes to get on the ballot in 3u States. (2) The Poor Man’s Party, whose candidate and the only paid-up member is Henry Krawjewski, a New Jersey pig farmer and tavern owner. (3) The Prohibition Party, whose candidate is Mr Stuart Hamblen, an evangelist, radio singer, and former cowboy. He describes himself as a “converted alcoholic” who wants to “save” the United States. (4) The American First Party and the Christian Nationalist Party. They, independently, are running General Douglas MacArthur, against his consent, in two or three States in the isolationist Middle West. (5) The Socialist Labour and Socialist Workers’ Parties. The latter upholds the teachings of Trotsky. There are two notable omissions from this year’s election campaign. One is the Communist Party, which has no candidates of its own. The other is the “Know-Nothing” Party, which was formed about 1850. and was so named because it said it had no principles. It disappeared after other “third parties” insisted it did have one—that of avoiding issues.