Political Career
He was the Prohibition Party’s candidate for Mayor of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, state legislature, State Treasurer, Governor of Pennsylvania.
He was also Party candidate for the position of President of the United States in 1904 election, running with George Washington Carroll. At 75, Swallow was the oldest man ever to be nominated for President (Ronald Reagan was 74 when re-nominated in 1984). Although both men on the 1904 Prohibition ticket were well known in the anti-alcohol community, Swallow's age, and the campaign of President Theodore Roosevelt, allowed little news of the Swallow-Carroll ticket to get out, and the ticket only received 258,000+ votes, a slight increase from the party's 1900 take. The election was won by Incumbent President Roosevelt of the Republican Party.
Swallow was also surpassed by two other unsuccessful presidential candidates:
- Alton Brooks Parker of the Democratic Party.
- Eugene Victor Debs of the Socialist Party of America.
Read more about this topic: Silas C. Swallow
Famous quotes related to political career:
“It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.”
—Auberon Waugh (b. 1939)