American Party (1914)

The American Party was a short-lived minor political party during the early 20th century. It was "formed by a number of disgruntled Democrats and admirers of William Sulzer." The party was incorporated on April 13, 1914 at Albany.

Sulzer had been a long-time Democratic U.S. Representative, and was elected Governor of New York in 1912. He was impeached when rebelling against the domination by Tammany boss Charles Francis Murphy, and was removed from office in October 1913. In November 1913, he was elected on the Progressive ticket to a seat in the New York State Assembly (6th District), but he thought it was necessary to have an own party to run at the next state election in 1914 with the aim to defeat Martin H. Glynn, his Lieutenant Governor who had succeeded to the governorship and whom Sulzer considered a back-stabber.

At the New York state election, 1914, the party ran only Sulzer as candidate for Governor, and adopted the Liberty Bell as symbol on the ballot. Since the party didn't have automatic ballot access, they were required to gather signatures and file petitions for all candidates, which they did for Sulzer but did not bother about for their other candidates which the American Party Executive Committee endorsed. Nevertheless, these candidates could be voted for: the candidates of other parties which were endorsed by the "Americans" could be voted for at their name printed on the ballot, and any candidate's name could be written in the "no-party" column and x-ed there. Sulzer received 70,655 votes for Governor on the American ticket which gave the party automatic ballot access for the next election.

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