Merrill K. Riddick papers, 1939-1973

Merrill Keith Riddick (1895-1988) was an early aviator. He was also three times a United States Presidential candidate for the Puritan Ethic and Epic, Magnetohydrodynamics and Prohibition Party. At the age of 11, he moved with his family to eastern Montana. At 16, Riddick became interested in the emerging field of aviation. In 1917, Riddick was a member of the first graduating class from the Army Air Force Aeronautics School in San Diego, California. He was sent to Europe during World War I to serve as an instructor and to fly reconnaissance. After the war, Riddick was among the first airmail pilots. Riddick and Charles Lindbergh barnstormed together in the Harry Perkins Air Circus. In 1928, Riddick was an instructor at the first aviation preparatory school in Rochester, New York. He re-joined the Air Force during World War II and served as a technical instructor. He was also a prospector who was involved in many different mining claims prior to and after the war. Riddick moved back to Montana after the war and became interested in magnetohydrodynamics (the conversion of coal to electricity in a superheated chamber through the use of magnets). He carried this interest into politics with political campaigns centered on natural resource management as well as campaign finance reform. He wrote and published the Journal of Applied Human Ecology, which focused on his plans for resource development. He ran for Montana governor in 1968, U.S. Congress in 1972, and was a presidential candidate in 1976, 1980, and 1984, but never won an election. Riddick ran for his self-created political party, the Puritan Ethic and Epic, Magnetohydrodynamics and Prohibition Party, and would not accept campaign contributions. Riddick campaigned across the nation, traveling only by passenger bus. After his presidential campaigns Riddick moved to Annapolis, Maryland, where he died in 1988.