Charles Hiram Randall

Randall founded and edited the Highland Park Herald (Los Angeles) in 1906. 
     He was elected Congressman for the 9th District, which includes most of eastern Los Angeles County.  This District had a large population of Methodists and Baptists.
    His candidacy was supported by the Los Angeles Times, one of only a few "dry" metropolitan newspapers."
     The 1914 race was 4-way, including a Republican, a Socialist, and a Progressive/Bull Moose, as well as a Prohibitionist.  Randall won with 30.9% of the vote, perhaps the lowest winning percentage ever in a Congressional race.
     Randall also was on the ballot in February of 1921, seeking to replace the 1920 winner after that person was killed in an auto accident.
     Randall was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1925, from a San Fernando Valley district; he was Council president 1931-33.
     Randall was something of an opportunist, sometimes running as a Republican, as a Progressive, or as an American Party candidate when not running as a Prohibitionist.  He won no elections for any of those parties.

--  Data from Stephen Ominsky’s “The Prohibition Party Congressman”
(The Keynoter 2015(4):30-31)


Charles Hiram Randall, born in Auburn, Nemaha County, Nebraska 23 July 1865, attended public schools, published newspapers at Kimball and at Harrisburg, Nebraska 1885-1992.  From 1992-1904, Randall worked as a railway mail clerk.  He moved to California in 1904, there working as a newspaper editor and publisher.  He was a member of the Municipal Park Commission of Los Angeles in 1909-10, a member of the State Assembly 1911-1912, and was elected to Congress on the Prohibition ticket in 1915 through 1921.  He was defeated for re-election in 1920.

     In the 1918 election Randall was listed as "Prohibition/Democratic."  He received 38,782 votes (52.99%).  In the 1920 election, he was again listed as "Prohibition/Democratic" and received 36,675 votes (34.78%).

     Randall was a member of the City Council of Los Angeles in 1925-1933.  He was again defeated for Congress in 1934.  He died in Los Angeles on 18 February 1951 and is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, at Glendale.  (Adapted from "United States Congressional Elections, 1788-1997," by Michael J. Dubin.)


Charles Randall was born in Auburn, Nebraska on 23 July 1865. He did newspaper work and was clerked in railway postoffices. 
     Moving to Los Angeles in 1904, Randall  was a member of the Municipal Park Commission and a member of the State Assembly. 
     Randall was elected to an unprecedented 3-terms of service in Congress in 1914.  Defeated for re-election in 1920, Randall returned to California and obtained a seat on the Los Angeles City Council.
     Hiram Randall died in Los Angeles on 18 February 1963.

-- Gammon, 2007, p.85

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