Union Party (United States)
The Union Party was a short-lived political party in the United States, formed in 1936 by a coalition of radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, old-age pension advocate Francis Townsend, and Gerald L. K. Smith, who had taken control of Huey Long's Share Our Wealth (SOW) movement after Long's assassination in 1935. Each of those people hoped to channel their wide followings into support for the Union Party, which proposed a populist alternative to the New Deal reforms of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression.
Image: Rep. William Lemke for Fraiser. A new informal pix of Rep. William Lemke LCCN2016875538 (cropped close 3x 4)
Image: Thomas C. O'Brien
Charles Edward Coughlin, commonly known as Father Coughlin, was a Canadian-American Catholic priest based in the United States near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the Little Flower. Dubbed "The Radio Priest" and considered a leading demagogue, he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience. During the 1930s, when the U.S. population was about 120 million, an estimated 30 million listeners tuned to his weekly broadcasts.
Father Coughlin c. 1938
Coughlin's church, the National Shrine of the Little Flower
Coughlin and Senator Elmer Thomas on the cover of Time in 1934
Father Coughlin at a WXYZ microphone (Radio Stars magazine, May 1934)