“Why will a man strive for an impossible goal?” asked the Collegian in 1967. The article referred to the then-Associate Academic Dean of the college, Earle Harold Munn, who had just accepted the Prohibition Party’s nomination for President of the United States.
Despite its near 100 year history, the party did not command even one percent of the national vote in the late 1960s. When Munn ran for the same party three years before, in 1964 (against Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater), he received 23,266 votes — just .03 percent of the total.
According to Munn, “It’s a matter of standing for principles and what one believes in.”
The once-prominent Prohibition Party, perhaps ironically, became very unpopular after the passage of the 18th Amendment, and did not gain popularity when the law was repealed. Changing election laws in later decades meant that the party appeared on the ballot in only 11 states by 1964.
The impeding, clear defeat did not faze Munn’s ultimate confidence in the truth of his cause, or hope for his future success.
“I would rather lose in a cause that will ultimately win, than win in a cause that will ultimately lose,” Munn told the Collegian.
Before the 1968 run against major party candidates Richard Nixon and Herbert Humphrey, Munn ran for several local offices, including mayor of the City of Hillsdale. He ran for governor of Michigan in 1952 and 1954, both times unsuccessfully, before chosen as vice presidential nominee on the Prohibition ticket headed by Rutherford Decker in 1960.
Munn could not even expect his own students’ support: according to Arlen Gilbert, Hillsdale College Historian, only 1.46 percent of students polled after the 1968 election voted for Munn; 58.98 percent supported Nixon. Related, perhaps, were efforts by the administration of College President J. Donald Phillips to control campus drinking and shed the school’s reputation for being a “country club”.
According to the statement of his son, E. Harold Munn Jr., upon his death, Munn was dedicated to non-compromise political positions.
“In 1932, the pressure was applied to ‘scratch the ticket’ and vote for Herbert Hoover to ‘save Prohibition,’” his son said. “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!”
Munn was born in 1903 in Bay Village, Dover Bay, Ohio. He attended Greenville College and later earned a masters degree University of Michigan in 1928. His career in education began at Central Academy and College, McPherson, Kansas, from 1927 to 1937. After teaching government, science, and public speaking for 10 years, he returned to his Alma Mater and was registrar and professor of psychology and education at Greenville. In 1939 he came to Hillsdale College as associate professor of education and instructor in American heritage. He eventually became associate, then full academic dean of the school. He was also involved in the radio business in Michigan.
In politics, the dedicated prohibitionist was chairman of the Michigan Prohibition Committee for six years, and of the national committee from 1955 to 1971, along with his frequent attempts at public office, none of which were successful. He was the first Prohibition Party candidate to run for president more than two times, and during his three national campaigns he traveled the country doing speeches and appearing on TV and radio to further his party’s agenda.
“He campaigned from a soap box in Times Square, New York, and the papers there lauded his logic and persistence,” his son said. “One commented that it was too bad that there was not sufficient organization to see him elected.”