E. Harold Munn
Presidential Candidate
(1964, 1968, 1972)
Earle Munn, Sr. was born on 29 November 1903. He died in 1992, after a long career in education. Munn attended the Westlake, Ohio public schools, earned an AB degree from Greenville College in 1925 and an MA from The University of Michigan in 1928.
He was Instructor in Government, Science, and Public Speaking at Central Academy and College, McPherson, Kansas from 1927-1937; was then Registrar, Acting Dean, and Professor of Psychology and Education at Greenville College; was then a graduate assistant in Education at the University of Michigan; and beginning in 1939 was Associate Professor of Education, Instructor in American Heritage, and then Associate Dean at Hillsdale College.
He was an executive at four radio stations in Michigan and since 1958 was president of the Hillsdale County School Employees Credit Union.
He was chairman of the Michigan Prohibition Committee for six years.
Munn died in 1992. At the time of his retirement, he was Academic Dean of Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan. The college archives contain tape recordings and motion pictures from his campaigns for office, in addition to photographs and printed materials.
Dr. Munn's service to the Prohibition Party included running for office at the local and state levels in Michigan, in addition to his three tries for the presidency. He was the first Prohibition Party candidate to run for President more than two times.
Munn was chairman of the Prohibition National Committee from 1955 until 1971, and was vice-chairman for several years afterward. At the time of his death, he was president of the National Prohibition Foundation.
In his obituary notice, published in the September, 1992 National Statesman, editor Earl F. Dodge notes: "Mr. Munn was always ready with advice and support and stuck with our cause through good times and bad.
Mr. Munn's son, E. Harold Munn, Jr., recently wrote to the editor of The Prohibitionist, saying...
My father, who would have been 100 years of age last November 29, was reared in a family having strong moral convictions, including abstaining from the use of alcohol. His parents were active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and, later, the Free Methodist Church. They were active in support of the WCTU, Oriental Missionary Society, and God's Bible School (Cincinnati, OH). Influenced by friends from the Free Methodist Church youth group, he elected to attend Greenville (Illinois) College, where one of his mentors was Dr. Enoch Holtwick, historian (and later Prohibition Party candidate) who related personal morality to civic responsibility.
In 1932, the pressure was applied to "scratch the ticket" and vote for Herbert Hoover to "save Prohibition." Contrary to the advice of Dr. Holtwick, dad succumbed to the "logic" and voted Republican only to see his vote"lost" and Prohibition go down the drain under the Roosevelt "New Deal." He vowed then and there never to again compromise principle for expediency and he never did! He contended hard for this issue in 1960 when the pressure was applied to "vote Republican and keep a Roman Catholic out of the White House.... Unfortunately, others abandoned both him and other Prohibition Party candidates to vote for Richard Nixon, receiving the defeat they were by choice a part of. But he did not retreat. In fact, his 1964 campaign for the presidency was conducted literally coast to coast. Where churches would not open their doors, universities and colleges would do so. He campaigned from a soap box in Times Square, New York, and the papers there lauded his logic and persistence and one commented that it was too bad that there was not sufficient organization to see him elected -- such was the evident quality of his platform and the logic he shared. He also appeared on numerous radio and television interview programs, receiving favorable comments where ever he appeared.
The party has never recovered from the defection of "good people" who have forgotten the late Claude Watson's admonition about it being better to chase a jack rabbit all day than to catch a polecat half way around the barn! It is a travesty that the party cannot muster enough support in states where such political aberrations as the "Green Party" and others are able to successfully gather sufficient signatures to get on the ballot. It may well be that just as the church temporized with tobacco and it took a secular Surgeon General to spark the anti-tobacco efforts, we will have to mobilize thinking people as well as inviting the churches to come along when and if they will, in support of a broad based program of government based on personal and civic morality.
The University of Michigan and Hillsdale (Michigan) College libraries both have extensive holdings concerning my father's political history and activity.
Munn's first wife, Ella Mae, died in 1977. He then married Nettie, a much younger woman who was still living in 2020.
E. Harold Munn, Sr. teaching a Sunday School class in 1989.
Additional data taken from 1968 campaign materials.