Longtime Prohibition Party activist and presidential candidate Earl F. Dodge died suddenly on November 7, 2007. He was age 74. He died without warning at the Denver Airport, about 8:30 a.m., just before he was about to board a flight. He devoted his entire life to the Prohibition Party. He had been national secretary of the party, for his first term in that office, in the late 1950’s.
I’ll drink to that!
Cheers!
Isn’t the term ‘Prohibition Party’ a contradiction?
I drove home from the bar as soon as I heard the news. Really, really fast.
Well, everyone needs to believe in something…I believe I’ll have another beer!
Gan bei!
Good riddance.
Good riddance, douchebag!
I wonder if the Dodge family and whoever else was part of his faction of the PP will continue to fight with the Gene Amondson group or if Dodge’s passing will bring them all together. You’d think the members of a political party whose platform is full of explicit Christianity would find a way to forgive each other.
Here to swimmin with bow legged womens!! WAHOO I AM DRUNK OFF MY FACE!!
Happy Trails, you miserable son of a bitch.
so he was born in 1933, 22 years after the death of Carrie Nation, one year after the 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment. Prohibition only led to Americans to lower respect for laws – this still exists to this day
I hope someone teabagged him as he was laying on the floor of the denver airport, it would be appropriate since he was forcing his weirdness on us.
Carrie Nation and those prohibition bull dykes should be credited with helping the mafia get started.
I would tell him to die in a fire, but he’s dead already … I hope they cremate him and flush his ashes so he can be with the rest of this worlds sewage where he belongs …fuck you asshat prohibition fucks.
Those trying to diminish Mr. Dodge’s contribution to this world with immature comments speaks volumes about them and it is not complimentary.
Earl Dodge was a husband, father, grandfather as well as long time activist.
My sympathy is extended to all who will miss him as they deal with this loss.
#14 – shaaaadddd aaaaahhhhp
Time to hang out with my bff Samuel Adams
For those who knew the man personally, you have my sympathies and condolences.
For those whose only knowledge of the man was from his antiquated politics, let us raise respectfully our glasses in a toast to the memory of a man who sought to serve his country to the best of his ability.
Devoted his life to the Prohibiton Party since the 1950’s? Imagine that, his whole life consumed by that dead end stupid fucking issue. A completely wasted life.
He was obviously a major loser and should have a big fucking capital “L” emblazoned on his head stone.
If you don,t smoke, drink, fornicate or take drugs, you don,t live longer, it seems longer
If you don,t smoke, drink, fornicate or take drugs, you don,t live longer, it seems longer
Earl Dodge, like many people who have a passion for social issues, cared first and foremost about people. Though his focus on prohibition was short-sighted at best–his concern about the problems of alcohol in this society are useful to remind us that we can and should seek to care about and address the brokenness of addiction and alcoholism in productive and effective ways. Anyone who has had to live in a home with an alcoholic knows the damage alcohol can do to relationships and emotional and physical health. My prayers are with the Dodge family.
…”he was forcing his weirdness on us.”
Mr. Dodge was exercising his First Amendment rights… he wasn’t forcing anything on anybody, especially given the small number of votes that he received.
I heard Mr. Dodge on local talk radio about 20 years ago. He seemed like a really nice man.
I think that some people on here should really be ashamed of themselves. A human being just passed away. Imagine the pain his family is going through. While you might think you are being cute and funny, the reality is that you are immature and heartless.
Mr Dodge was a fine gentleman. A few short sighted individuals find it amusing to not only slander what he stood for, but also to make innane and ridiculously childish comments. Our families prayers are with the Dodge family and may others see the value of what Earl Dodge stood for.
Although he didn’t drink, he was known to use beer bottles to pleasure his wife.
To those who defend the man or attempt to honor his cause, I say you are no better than the Taliban whose defeat we are pursuing with lives and treasure. You sad, bitter, defeated and lonely lives deserve no respect for you seek to prohibit one of man’s innate rights, which is to enjoy the fruits of the earth and to control our own consciousnesses. For most of the world, including teetotalers, Prohibition makes as much sense as refusing to breathe oxygen. Get off your knees and live a little because we’re all going to be dead a LONG LONG TIME. No one is forcing you to drink, so don’t force your fears down the throats of good hardworking people.
I”ll pour a good bottle of Scotch over Mr. Dodge’s grave, only I’ll filter it through my kidneys first.
It looks like most of these comments are coming from one person with too much time on his hands and too much beer in his gut. Please take your stupid, childish, malicious comments over to DailyKos where they belong. Better yet, get a job, frat boy…
Face it, we’re all fringe lunatics here at BAN. Just because Dodge’s fringe lunacy isn’t your fringe lunacy is no reason to disrespect the man or his memory. PP is no crazier than SWP or LP or any other third party that most of us here at BAN seek to support. To claim that Dodge was “forcing his weirdness on us” is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think? Please, get some perspective…
I’m grateful to see at least _some_ civilized comments about Dad here. While Dad and I had our differences of opinion on a few issues (including, eventually, Prohibition (I didn’t disagree about the effects of alcohol – just the best way to limit/mitigate those effects)), he was a good man who was dedicated and loyal to his cause and his family. All of us will miss him until we see him again in Heaven.
What was the split in the Prohibition Party about, anyway?
Earl Dodge was my uncle, my mom’s only brother. His passing is a sorrow for us all and also a joy to know he is now home with his lord. If he saw some of the comments on this page I know he’d pray that you might be as ready to meet your maker when its your turn to go.
Many of the despicable persons making the crude and rude comments don’t even have the backbone to place their name on what they state. I guess it says alot about your personal character. Earl Dodge stood for something he truly believed in and those of you disparaging him need to look at your own lives before running his name into the ground. Guaranteed he would pray for your souls…
As the adage says, if you have nothing good to say don’t say anything.
Reading some of these posts gives me pause, and will encourage me to not act like such an a–wipe myself in the future when commenting on people I know little of or nothing about. My dad was just a guy who believed in a cause, and committed his life to it. He lived his life in genuine humility, gave freely of his time and concern to many over the years, including people he’d just met. The Prohibition Party can now die it’s death at the hand of others who’ve tried to “hobbitize” for their own reasons, whatever those reasons are. Dad had a sense of this country, that used to be taught in our schools, but has fallen at the feet of PC baloney. He was a political historian and would teach anyone regardless of who they were. If you met him, you’d like him, because he would like you and/or give you all the respect you were entitled to as a fellow human being. Disagree with his Prohibitionist beliefs. I did. But I respectfully submit that he was a fine addition to the human race, our country, and of course his family.
to Steve from Atlanta,
So now the Taliban has joined the growing list of words that are losing all meaning, like Nazi, Holocaust, etc. There is one Taliban. There was one Holocaust. There have certainly been many horrific events in history where one group of people were slaughtered by another, but again…there was one Holocaust. There was one Hitler. The events get cheapened in importance , the evil of a Taliban gets lost in the shuffle, when you use them so indiscriminately. Pres. Bush has been called a Talibani by American extremists on the left. Talibani has no meaning outside of that which it’s used to describe the radical Islamists who’ve declared war on us. Pick your insults a little more carefully, please. Thank you.
Earl Dodge’s life and work is relevant on this site because he led a (very) small political party. No one in this thread has mentioned whether he did or did not participate in the fight against bad ballot access laws or for proportional representation. I’ll save my comments on Prohibition and Dodge’s role in promoting it for a place and time where they’d be relevant. Here, I would like someone to comment on what role, if any, he (or the Prohibition Party) played in electoral reform.
Earl Dodge was largely responsible for Colorado easing presidential ballot access during the 1970’s. He served on a commission to advise the legislature on improving the election laws. In 1973 the Colorado legislature had increased the presidential petition from 300 signatures to 10,000, but Earl’s work got that down to 5,000 in 1975, and then later the present law requiring only $500 instead of a petition was passed.
Thanks for that info, Richard. It sounds like Earl Dodge is a man deserving of our respect, even if we didn’t always agree with him.
I am amazed at some of the negative and filthy comments appearing here – written by those who never had an opportunity to know my friend and associate, Earl Dodge.
Since I shared Earl’s dedication to a world free of the blight of alcohol related problems, I found his positions to be very rational and understandable on the subject. I now take this opportunity to say I honor the memory of a man who strove to make the world a better place to live.
Agree or disagree, who did Earl Dodge hurt? If any one, himself he hurt the most! The man believed in a cause and lived that cause. Not many people do. How many of his distractors have the intestinal fortitude to publically declare theirs, work at it, and with other than ignorant gutter language?
I have been a Prohibitionist since 2000, although I never applied for mailings from the party until 2001 and only started receiving them in 2002.
I actually founded a club at my High School (in New York) dedicated to the Prohibitionist cause, and we had members. We even sent a 70 dollar check to the Prohibition Party to pay for seven 10-dollar-subscriptions to the party newsletter. That happened in 2002/2003.
Earl (he wanted me to call him by his first name) was a really sweet man. He was always very courteous, if pithy (because he was so busy) in his emails from me since 2001. After I graduated college in 2006, I emailed him less often. But I did call him in December 2004 to wish him a happy birthday!
He wrote me for the last time just this past September 2007. I will miss him so, so much. I do not even want to ask a question about the future of the Prohibitionist Party—that would seem inappropriate—but if asked, I would love to take responsibility over the party. I would not do it for money and I do not want a cent from this. I just sincerely appreciated everything that Mr. Dodge has done for me (he even sent me some 1,000 Willard leaflets free of charge, so I could distribute them on my college campus!), and I would feel so privileged and humbled if I could help the party in any way in the months after the mourning period ends.
Perhaps the family has mailing lists. My name, email, and address would most certainly be there. If the Dodge family is looking at this, then please count me in as a contributor or helper to anything that might help the memory of your beloved father, husband, and grandfather.
My stomach began to hurt as I read the comments at the beginning of this blog. I was relieved to see, in some of the more recent postings, that there existed some compassion for my father and our family.
Earl F. Dodge and I agreed on very little, particularly social, political and religious ideals and beliefs. Though my convictions and beliefs were often the exact opposite of those held by my father, I do admire the integrity with which Dad lived his life. I daresay not many of those reviling his name live today with anything close to that level of integrity!
Earl and Barbara Dodge raised a family of seven children. They took in stray animals, even serving as ‘foster parents’ for dogs rescued from the streets or from cruel owners. Dad’s life was not wasted, for he was his own man, doing what he believed to be right. Mom’s life without him will be sad, very sad. A packed church of mourners last Monday spoke of their sadness as well. How can that be considered a waste of a life?
I have heard, and read, that Dad’s political work was the ‘love’ of his life. The truth is that his wife, my mother, was the love of Dad’s life. I don’t think he could have imagined there would be a time when another human being would make crude references to my mom, such as appear in this blog. My mother is still alive. She has done nothing but love her children and her husband. She certainly doesn’t deserve to be referred to in disgustingly flippant and derogatory terms.
To all of you who feel the need to curse this man and his work: Who will cry at your passing? Were he still alive, my dad would probably weep for you and your words of hatred and anger. Such hate and rage is TRULY a wasted life.
Namaste.
I am a member of the Dodge family assocaition and was horrified when I read some of the things people were writing about the passing of Mr. Dodge. Unfortunately, I never got to meet him, but his tremendous committment to genelogy and historic preservation will be difficult to replace. Most people know only of his politics but know little of his tireless contribution to preserving history. I am very greatful to him for his dedication to uniting Dodges around the world as well as preserving the historic homesite in England. I hear many people in this new, free thinking, open minded society of ours say they believe in individualism and free speech. That is as long as it agrees with their point of view. When ones views are not politically correct or fashionably chic then they believe they should be silenced or ridiculed. How hypocritical!My admiration goes out to Earl F. Dodge for having the courage of his convictions even when they were not very popular. Thank you to Earl and Barbara for all they have done. They are in my thoughts and prayers.
For a detailed biography of Earl Dodge, look under his years of candidacy in my website http://www.prohibitionists.org. I am currently condensing and up-dating this for a supplement to Roger Storms’ history of the Prohibition Party, “Partisan Prophets,” to be published later in 2014.
I am pleased to see (some of) Dodge’s children defending him from these gratuitous attacks. To be rejected by one’s own family is the worst of all fates.