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The Union Party was a short-lived political party in the US that ran a presidential candidate in some states in the 1936 election. It was formed by the followers of Huey Long, including Gerald LK Smith, Father Charles Coughlin, and Francis Townsend. The party offered a more radical alternative to Roosevelt’s New Deal but was not Marxist. The party disbanded after its defeat, and its leaders faded from public view. There was also a Union Party in the 1864 election, which was a combination of the Republican Party and a faction of the Democratic Party.
The Union Party typically refers to a short-lived political party in the United States that ran a presidential candidate in some states in the 1936 presidential election. Formed after the assassination of Louisiana politician Huey Long, the Union Party The Union was composed of the followers of three men, Gerald LK Smith, who was Long’s successor; radio preacher Father Charles Coughlin; and Francis Townsend, leader of a movement for pensions for the elderly. This group united around a party that offered a more radical alternative to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal but was not Marxist in ideology.
The foundations of the Union Party are found in Louisiana Senator Huey Long’s “Share Our Wealth” movement, which has called for, among other things, limits on personal net worth, free education through college level, and a pension national. Long was assassinated in 1935. In order to mount a legitimate third-party challenge to the Republican and Democratic political parties, Long’s successor, Gerald LK Smith, joined the Share Our Wealth movement with supporters of the other two men.
One of the men who joined forces with Smith to form the Union Party was a Catholic priest named Father Charles Coughlin. In the 1930s, Coughlin had up to 40 million listeners to his weekly radio show which he used to challenge Roosevelt’s policies. He was also thought to be sympathetic to the anti-Semitic views of many Germans at the time.
The third stalwart who formed the Union Party was Francis Townsend, a physician whose Townsend Plan provided for a pension for every US citizen over the age of 60. His plan gained widespread popularity and support through the use of grassroots organizers in nearly every major city in the country. Ultimately, the Townsend Plan had an influence on Roosevelt’s Social Security legislation.
Union Party supporters of these three groups ran William Lemke as a presidential candidate in 1936. Lemke, a United States Congressman from North Dakota, could not get the vote in every state in the United States. He only won about 2% of the votes cast, or about 900,000 votes.
After its defeat in 1936, the Union Party quickly disbanded. Coughlin gave up his radio airplay after the leak, though he returned to the airwaves later and was ultimately ordered off the air. Townsend faded from public view after the passage of Social Security legislation, making his plan largely obsolete. Smith continued to pursue an increasingly radical agenda, but made no significant impact on the US political scene.
Though less well known, there was also a Union Party in the 1864 US presidential election. That Union Party, also short-lived, was a combination of the Republican Party and a faction of the Democratic Party known as the Democrats of War. The party put forward Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson as candidates. The goal was to draw Democrats into the Republican Party; however, the effort was largely ineffective, and in 1868 the Union Party reverted to the name of the Republican Party.
