He received 147,482 votes for 1.5% of the popular vote on a ticket with William Daniel which was an increase of 137,118 votes from Neal Dow's results in 1880 due to support from Frances Willard and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. He was blamed for James G. Blaine's defeat and on November 27, 1884, an effigy of him was burned in Topeka, Kansas in front of a crowd of three thousand people. He was made chairman of the 1888 Prohibition national convention and oversaw the writing of the party's platform. He declined to seek the Prohibition Party's presidential nomination for the 1892 presidential election and instead nominated John Bidwell who went on to win the nomination and was named as the temporary chairman of the convention. At the 1896 Prohibition convention he supported the broad gauger faction that wanted to add women's suffrage and free silver to the party's platform, but after the narrow gauger faction successfully defeated those attempts John, Charles Eugene Bentley, and Helen M. Gougar led a walkout of the broad gaugers and created the breakaway National Party and nominated a rival ticket with Bentley as president and James H. Southgate as vice president. Following the 1896 election he became disillusioned with party and joined the People's Party although he would later return to the Prohibition party. Later life On December 3, 1887, he, with a group of followers, bought 10,000 acres of land in Newhall, California, to create a dry community. In 1912, he toured Kansas in support of women's suffrage. On June 20, 1916, he suffered from heat exhaustion, but was able to recover enough to attend the 1916 Prohibition national convention in July. St. John died after suffering heat exhaustion on August 31, 1916, in Olathe, Kansas. His funeral was attended by Governor Arthur Capper, former Governor George H. Hodges, and Herman P. Faris who served as the Prohibition Party's representative. Electoral history See also Temperance organizations References External links Publications concerning Kansas Governor St. John's administration available via the KGI Online Library. |- |- 1833 births 1916 deaths 20th-century American politicians American Christian Scientists American temperance activists Republican Party governors of Kansas Kansas Prohibitionists Republican Party Kansas state senators People from Brookville, Indiana People of Illinois in the American Civil War Prohibition Party (United States) presidential nominees Union Army officers Candidates in the 1884 United States presidential election Former Congregationalists Converts to Christian