“A Toast to Glory: The Prohibition Party Flirts With Greatness” is now available for Amazon Kindle. Darcy Richardson’s latest work is an examination of the 1932 Prohibition Party’s efforts to recruit a major-name candidate to serve as their Presidential nominee.
For much of its history, the Prohibition Party has fancied itself as a significant entity in American politics — and occasionally it proved to be precisely that. Though twice rebuffed by an aging William Jennings Bryan, who graciously declined the party’s presidential nomination in 1916 and again in 1920, the Prohibitionists demonstrated considerable political savvy before and during the period of national prohibition.
The 1932 presidential campaign was no exception.
As the Great Depression deepened, resulting in a record number of business defaults and home foreclosures, more than 5,000 bank failures and an ever-climbing jobless rate that would eventually peak at 25 percent, the Prohibitionists — after more than six decades of political penury — believed that they had not only landed a formidable candidate for the presidency, but also had a genuine shot at winning the White House.
In addition to the devastating collapse of the U.S. economy, the 1932 presidential election took on even greater importance for the Prohibitionists due to the growing clamor for repeal of national prohibition, the party’s raison d’être.
“A Toast to Glory” takes readers back to that exciting, pivotal and often-overlooked campaign.
The book is a relatively short 60 pages and available for only $2.99 on Amazon.com — it’s a fun and easy read that’s well worth checking out if you have any interest in history, third parties or Prohibition era politics.
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