Benjamin Bubar Sr.

Benjamin Calvin Bubar Sr. (1878-July 4, 1967) was an American United Baptist minister and politician from Maine. After studying Billy Sunday, Bubar was a leading fundamentalist leader in Maine.^[1]

Bubar was born in Blaine, Maine and educated in public schools as well as at Ricker Classical Institute. A United Baptist, he was the first ordained minister of that church in the state. He had six children.^[1] His children were also staunch temperance activists and involved in politics. His namesake, Benjamin Bubar Jr., was twice the Prohibition Party's nominee for President (1976 and 1980).^[2] One of his daughters, Rachel Bubar Kelly, was the Prohibition Party's nominee for vice-president in 1996. His youngest child, Paul Bubar, was one of the founders of Word of Life Fellowship.

He was the author of the first anti-evolution bill submitted to the Maine Legislature. A fierce prohibitionist, in 1911 he published a book, The Devil Let Loose in Maine about the problems of alcohol in the State.^[3] A biographical sketch published by the Maine Legislature said that the book "did much to defeat" repeal of the Maine's prohibition of the sale of alcohol in 1911.^[1]

During the 1920s, Bubar worked with the Ku Klux Klan in Maine and, December 1925, went on a speaking tour of his native Aroostook County coordinated by Klan leader DeForest H. Perkins. In 1936, the Bangor Daily News described him as "widely known in Maine as a Ku Klux Klan orator."^[4]

He was a follower of Francis Townsend, a physician who advocated for old age pensions during the Great Depression.^[5]

He was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1934 as a Republican. He served from 1949 to 1952 as a Progressive. He ran for governor as an Independent in 1936, finishing in third place of three with 1.89% of the vote. He was elected again to the House in 1950 and 1952.^[6] In 1951, he was known for making a passionate but ultimately failed plea in favor of an income tax over a sales tax.^[5]