Monarchy Party
Encyclopedia
The Monarchy Party was a student political party that formed independently on two campuses across the United States
. The first group was formed around 1970 at the University of Maryland, College Park
by Greg Canter (also known as Barchan of Dinglebury). The second was formed, without knowledge of the first, on the campus of Florida State University
in Tallahassee, Florida
in 1989. The later incarnation led to many weird and subtle cultural and political effects, including a mention in a song called the "Ballad of Marshall Ledbetter
" by former Dead Kennedys
singer, Jello Biafra
, a political endorsement by Mojo Nixon
, articles written about them in The Washington Post
and The Times
of London, as well as confrontations with other student leaders who would later go on to conventional political careers, such as Trey Traviesa
who represented District 56 in the Florida House of Representatives
. At one point, Florida State University quarterback
and eventual Heisman Trophy
winner Charlie Ward
ran successfully as their vice presidential candidate. There appears to have been a third student Monarchy Party formed in 1997 on the campus of San Francisco State University
, but it is unclear how successful they were.
The basis of both of these political groups was to get a King
elected student body president. In a strange occurrence of synchronicity
both groups used the campaign slogan "Vote once for the King, and you'll never have to vote again".
system in student government
, which they felt led to cronyism
and misallocation of student activity fees. To do this, though, they had to register a political party that would be entitled to participate in the election debates. Briefly, they considered names such as the Erection Party, with slogans such as "We're hard to beat" or "We'll stay up all night for you." But it seemed much more apt to mock the current state of affairs, with the Greek organizations treating student government as its own personal fiefdom. "They might as well be hereditary monarchs," said Arvesen. That was it. A party was born.
While they knew they were basing their party on a joke, they were not having a joke party. Instead, they employed humor to serious political ends. As FSU Monarchy Party Crown Prince, Jason Shipp, once accused his opponent: ". . . You are a true master of politics, from poly meaning many, and ticks meaning bloodsuckers."
Since the opposing student parties at FSU (Seminole Party and Action Party) were better funded, the Monarchists used alternative campaigning techniques. They wore bright colored renaissance and medieval outfits, often borrowed from the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism
, they wore swords, and had their displays around campus set up with working stocks and a functioning guillotine (used to chop cabbage and watermelons in the student union). These props were made by Gregory Cohen, the behind the scenes guy in the party. His hobby seems to have been taking wild ideas from other members of the group and making them into reality.
The Monarchy Party grew to be one of the largest student groups on the campus of FSU, holding coronations with an attendance of over 800 students. Many formerly uninvolved students became politically active due to the Monarchists, as is shown by the fact that elections in which they participated drew record voter turnouts. In a single format, spectacle, wonder, and politics were combined into a synergistic moment with the Monarchy Party. As one observer at the time put it, "Other parties have supporters, but the Monarchy Party has a fan club."
In order to operate as a student organization between elections, the group also incorporated itself as the Young Monarchist's League. Some members took an active interest in researching current and historical monarchies, enabling the group to add authentic features to their public events and ceremonies, such as coronations, investitures, and the like. Such ceremonies were always accompanied by a large party, with live music and entertainment. However, the high point of the event was when the monarch held court, a performance that combined medieval costuming, satirical humor, and the random ennoblement of audience members. These events attracted hundreds of students. As one of their posters stated, "A political party is still a party."
The party itself while symbolized with the trappings of a monarchy took a separate route in the minds of the Students of FSU, to the point that on its own, the pronunciation of Monarchy (as in the party) shifted its emphasis from its first syllable to its second, changing its pronunciation to sound more like Malarky. While not planned, this seemed somewhat appropriate and approved of by the party's organizers.
The Monarchy Party as it grew became a victim of its own success. By its final year in 1994, the party had changed, all of the original members had graduated and had left, and students who wanted to be elected took over the party, and the party became more straight-faced and businesslike. In this final year, Monarchy candidates finally won the Student Body Presidential election, putting Jeannie Belin and Charlie Ward
into office. By this time the trappings of office, the costumes, the humor and the royal titles were long gone, so was the newspaper and the mottoes. People's pronunciation of Monarchy returned to the way it was. Andrew Arvesen once said that the "Monarchy Party will get stronger with defeat". Unfortunately, it was victory that killed it.
, a fringe member of the Monarchy Party, took over the Florida State Capitol
with nothing more than an empty bottle of grain alcohol and his wit. In his demands fax he requested the demands be delivered by, among others, "A ranking member of the Monarchy Party". Marshall was a former roommate of Jon Lammers (King Jon), and started his trek to the capitol building from Steven Profit's (Prince Steven) apartment behind Bill's Bookstore, the independent FSU campus book store, where he was crashing at the time.
, The New York Times
, USA Today
, Cosmopolitan
, US News and World Report, and Rolling Stone
. The Rolling Stone parody was an exception as it was titled "Rolling Throne." Containing "All the news that fits the Prince," approximately 10,000 copies of each paper were distributed to the "citizens of the Kingdom of Florida State." The goal was to get votes for the party using a clever blend of humor and information. The idea was that if it were entertaining to read, the paper would reach a larger audience and persuade more readers to see the royalist point of view.
In addition to covering campus politics with wry humor, The Kings English also covered royal news worldwide, with an emphasis on the governmental and historical aspects, rather than the fashion focus of mainstream royalty magazines.
To the surprise of its creators, The Kings English was shipped around the world by students to family members. Some ended up in the Middle East with soldiers taking part in Operation Desert Storm. These people in turn were so amused that they sent donations to the Monarchy Party to help its continued publication.
To encourage distribution, the creators encouraged photocopying of the publication. This has been upgraded to the Creative Commons license as it became available years later. The Kings English was primarily written by Travis Casey, Bucky Goldstein, Andrew Arvesen, and Gregory Cohen.
The best of the Monarchy Party's print work is compiled in a book called the Monarchists Cookbook.
Selection and ascension to the throne was accomplished through primogeniture
(in a contrived manner), but if you asked a member of the Monarchy Party at the time they would tell you that they were chosen by God
.
to turn a profit on an election. They did this not only by openly soliciting donations from real monarchs, which they did get, but by selling T-shirts and big floppy hats with a feather in them in the student union. This fund raising raised money to produce the Kings English and Crown Dispatch. There were a few dark times for fund raising where Jason Shipp had to use his credit card to buy things for folks who gave him cash to pay for the paper.
The group produced dozens of flyers that combined catchy slogans with appropriate historical engravings of monarchs, torture, and jousting. These flyers were extremely popular on campus and many students collected them, putting up Monarchy "shrines" in their dorm rooms. All of which fed the enthusiasm for the party.
Woodward Avenue, a major thoroughfare that dangerously cut through the middle of campus, the installation of a snack bar/cafe in the library, and the current administrative pursuit of the Greek Relocation Program (the majority of FSU's Greek organizations are now in an area called Heritage Grove which is over a mile away from campus). A few of the Monarchy Party Platform's greatest hits:
and there is some evidence that Monarchist Party split from the Militia to make sure it would continue to get funded by the Student Government Association. It was not until 1985 that they got elected, and at that point they won the top slot by taking the Student Body Presidency. This first elected student king was King Tom II, AKA Tom Cooper, now a police officer in the DC area. Also serving in the first court were Queen Virginia, Lord High Chancellor Duke Sir Paul, and Chancellor of Exchequer Prince Jim.
Another popular campaign slogan was "Both the SGA (Student Government Association) and the Monarchist Party are jokes. But one of them isn't funny." This was in reference to alleged corruption of previous Student Body Governments, which has never been proven one way or the other.
The Monarchist Party's main opposition was a group backed by the fraternities. The opposing group spent their entire campaign allocation of $1500.00 on posters, buttons, "Get out the vote" shuttle buses, etc. King Tom was said to have spent approximately $4.97 one afternoon on video games at the Student Union arcade, and a submarine sandwich for lunch. Another source of revenue was an enclosed wall display with a paper troth between the sliding glass doors into a Dixie cup. behind the cup was a drawing of King Tom as a M-16 carrying soldier with a smiley face yelling "Kill, Kill, Kill". All of the Monarchist Party campaign material was made by those running for office, and their supporters.
As time went on during the campaign, it became clear that the Monarchist Party was mustering more support than they ever had in past years. In order to keep the support building, a new slogan and poster was devised. It showed three crudely drawn cows and was handwritten in magic marker "This is the year, this is the beer, here are some cows". This new slogan was thought up by King Tom's friend, Timothy Smith.
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The first group was formed around 1970 at the University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
by Greg Canter (also known as Barchan of Dinglebury). The second was formed, without knowledge of the first, on the campus of Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...
in Tallahassee, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
in 1989. The later incarnation led to many weird and subtle cultural and political effects, including a mention in a song called the "Ballad of Marshall Ledbetter
Marshall Ledbetter
Marshall Ledbetter, Jr. was an American photographer, psychedelics enthusiast, iconoclast and unconventional protester.-Protest:...
" by former Dead Kennedys
Dead Kennedys
Dead Kennedys are an American punk rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1978. The band became part of the American hardcore punk movement of the early 1980s. They gained a large underground fanbase in the international punk music scene....
singer, Jello Biafra
Jello Biafra
Jello Biafra is an American musician, spoken word artist and leading figure of the Green Party of the United States. Biafra first gained attention as the lead singer and songwriter for San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys...
, a political endorsement by Mojo Nixon
Mojo Nixon
Mojo Nixon is an American musician, known for playing psychobilly music...
, articles written about them in The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
of London, as well as confrontations with other student leaders who would later go on to conventional political careers, such as Trey Traviesa
Trey Traviesa
Trey Traviesa was a Republican Florida State Representative serving Florida district 56, in the Tampa area. He received his B.S. in Finance from Florida State University and his M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin....
who represented District 56 in the Florida House of Representatives
Florida House of Representatives
The Florida House of Representatives is the lower house of the Florida Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Florida. The House is composed of 120 members representing an equal number of districts, with each district having an average population of 156,677.The House convenes at...
. At one point, Florida State University quarterback
Quarterback
Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...
and eventual Heisman Trophy
Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award , is awarded annually to the player deemed the most outstanding player in collegiate football. It was created in 1935 as the Downtown Athletic Club trophy and renamed in 1936 following the death of the Club's athletic director, John Heisman The Heisman Memorial...
winner Charlie Ward
Charlie Ward
Charlie Ward, Jr. is a retired American professional NBA basketball player, college football Heisman Trophy winner, Davey O'Brien Award winner and a Major League Baseball draftee. Ward is considered one of the best all-around athletes in the last quarter century...
ran successfully as their vice presidential candidate. There appears to have been a third student Monarchy Party formed in 1997 on the campus of San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
, but it is unclear how successful they were.
The basis of both of these political groups was to get a King
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
elected student body president. In a strange occurrence of synchronicity
Synchronicity
Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner...
both groups used the campaign slogan "Vote once for the King, and you'll never have to vote again".
Florida State University Monarchy Party
The group at Florida State University was formed late one night in 1989, in the TV lounge of Landis Hall (which was the dormitory for honors students at FSU) by Andrew Arvesen, Chuck Powell, and Jon Lammers. The original idea was to protest the dominance of the "Greek" fraternity/sororityFraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
system in student government
Students' union
A students' union, student government, student senate, students' association, guild of students or government of student body is a student organization present in many colleges and universities, and has started appearing in some high schools...
, which they felt led to cronyism
Cronyism
Cronyism is partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications. Hence, cronyism is contrary in practice and principle to meritocracy....
and misallocation of student activity fees. To do this, though, they had to register a political party that would be entitled to participate in the election debates. Briefly, they considered names such as the Erection Party, with slogans such as "We're hard to beat" or "We'll stay up all night for you." But it seemed much more apt to mock the current state of affairs, with the Greek organizations treating student government as its own personal fiefdom. "They might as well be hereditary monarchs," said Arvesen. That was it. A party was born.
While they knew they were basing their party on a joke, they were not having a joke party. Instead, they employed humor to serious political ends. As FSU Monarchy Party Crown Prince, Jason Shipp, once accused his opponent: ". . . You are a true master of politics, from poly meaning many, and ticks meaning bloodsuckers."
Since the opposing student parties at FSU (Seminole Party and Action Party) were better funded, the Monarchists used alternative campaigning techniques. They wore bright colored renaissance and medieval outfits, often borrowed from the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism
Society for Creative Anachronism
The Society for Creative Anachronism is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century...
, they wore swords, and had their displays around campus set up with working stocks and a functioning guillotine (used to chop cabbage and watermelons in the student union). These props were made by Gregory Cohen, the behind the scenes guy in the party. His hobby seems to have been taking wild ideas from other members of the group and making them into reality.
The Monarchy Party grew to be one of the largest student groups on the campus of FSU, holding coronations with an attendance of over 800 students. Many formerly uninvolved students became politically active due to the Monarchists, as is shown by the fact that elections in which they participated drew record voter turnouts. In a single format, spectacle, wonder, and politics were combined into a synergistic moment with the Monarchy Party. As one observer at the time put it, "Other parties have supporters, but the Monarchy Party has a fan club."
In order to operate as a student organization between elections, the group also incorporated itself as the Young Monarchist's League. Some members took an active interest in researching current and historical monarchies, enabling the group to add authentic features to their public events and ceremonies, such as coronations, investitures, and the like. Such ceremonies were always accompanied by a large party, with live music and entertainment. However, the high point of the event was when the monarch held court, a performance that combined medieval costuming, satirical humor, and the random ennoblement of audience members. These events attracted hundreds of students. As one of their posters stated, "A political party is still a party."
The party itself while symbolized with the trappings of a monarchy took a separate route in the minds of the Students of FSU, to the point that on its own, the pronunciation of Monarchy (as in the party) shifted its emphasis from its first syllable to its second, changing its pronunciation to sound more like Malarky. While not planned, this seemed somewhat appropriate and approved of by the party's organizers.
The Monarchy Party as it grew became a victim of its own success. By its final year in 1994, the party had changed, all of the original members had graduated and had left, and students who wanted to be elected took over the party, and the party became more straight-faced and businesslike. In this final year, Monarchy candidates finally won the Student Body Presidential election, putting Jeannie Belin and Charlie Ward
Charlie Ward
Charlie Ward, Jr. is a retired American professional NBA basketball player, college football Heisman Trophy winner, Davey O'Brien Award winner and a Major League Baseball draftee. Ward is considered one of the best all-around athletes in the last quarter century...
into office. By this time the trappings of office, the costumes, the humor and the royal titles were long gone, so was the newspaper and the mottoes. People's pronunciation of Monarchy returned to the way it was. Andrew Arvesen once said that the "Monarchy Party will get stronger with defeat". Unfortunately, it was victory that killed it.
Marshall Ledbetter
Marshall LedbetterMarshall Ledbetter
Marshall Ledbetter, Jr. was an American photographer, psychedelics enthusiast, iconoclast and unconventional protester.-Protest:...
, a fringe member of the Monarchy Party, took over the Florida State Capitol
Florida State Capitol
The Florida State Capitol, in Tallahassee, Florida, USA, is the state capitol of the U.S. state of Florida. The building is an architecturally and historically significant building, having been listed on the National Register of Historic Places....
with nothing more than an empty bottle of grain alcohol and his wit. In his demands fax he requested the demands be delivered by, among others, "A ranking member of the Monarchy Party". Marshall was a former roommate of Jon Lammers (King Jon), and started his trek to the capitol building from Steven Profit's (Prince Steven) apartment behind Bill's Bookstore, the independent FSU campus book store, where he was crashing at the time.
The King's English and Crown Dispatch
The Monarchy Party published a newsprint newsletter that was distributed free on the campus of Florida State University. Each copy of this publication, called the Kings English and Crown Dispatch, was a layout parody of a major mass media publication. These lampoons included PravdaPravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
, US News and World Report, and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
. The Rolling Stone parody was an exception as it was titled "Rolling Throne." Containing "All the news that fits the Prince," approximately 10,000 copies of each paper were distributed to the "citizens of the Kingdom of Florida State." The goal was to get votes for the party using a clever blend of humor and information. The idea was that if it were entertaining to read, the paper would reach a larger audience and persuade more readers to see the royalist point of view.
In addition to covering campus politics with wry humor, The Kings English also covered royal news worldwide, with an emphasis on the governmental and historical aspects, rather than the fashion focus of mainstream royalty magazines.
To the surprise of its creators, The Kings English was shipped around the world by students to family members. Some ended up in the Middle East with soldiers taking part in Operation Desert Storm. These people in turn were so amused that they sent donations to the Monarchy Party to help its continued publication.
To encourage distribution, the creators encouraged photocopying of the publication. This has been upgraded to the Creative Commons license as it became available years later. The Kings English was primarily written by Travis Casey, Bucky Goldstein, Andrew Arvesen, and Gregory Cohen.
The best of the Monarchy Party's print work is compiled in a book called the Monarchists Cookbook.
Royal Family
During its life, the kingdom had several Kings and Queens. With the exception of the title of Knight, titles often stayed around for the members time with the party, on the theory that "Once a King, always a King, but once a knight is enough."- Andrew Arvesen - King Andrew and later after stepping down Archduke Andrew
- Steven Profit - Prince Steven the Provocative and Pure, earlier Count Chocula of Biscuitmania.
- Jon Lammers - King Jon
- Chuck Powell - Prince Charles, then Prince Charming, later King Charles
- Jason Shipp - Prince Jason
- Sarah Poore - Queen Sarah, earlier Sarah the Just and Perfectly Proportioned
- RogueRogue (musician)Rogue is a founding member and lead singer of the American goth/electropop band The Crüxshadows.-Biography:...
- The last real candidate for the Monarchy Party, shortly before he founded the band The CrüxshadowsThe CrüxshadowsThe Crüxshadows is an Dark Electro group from Florida. Their sound is made up of a combination of male vocals, electric violin, guitar, and synth...
.
Selection and ascension to the throne was accomplished through primogeniture
Primogeniture
Primogeniture is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings . Historically, the term implied male primogeniture, to the exclusion of females...
(in a contrived manner), but if you asked a member of the Monarchy Party at the time they would tell you that they were chosen by God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
.
Fund Raising
The Monarchy Party at FSU may have been the first party since the times of Boss TweedBoss Tweed
William Magear Tweed – often erroneously referred to as William Marcy Tweed , and widely known as "Boss" Tweed – was an American politician most notable for being the "boss" of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th century...
to turn a profit on an election. They did this not only by openly soliciting donations from real monarchs, which they did get, but by selling T-shirts and big floppy hats with a feather in them in the student union. This fund raising raised money to produce the Kings English and Crown Dispatch. There were a few dark times for fund raising where Jason Shipp had to use his credit card to buy things for folks who gave him cash to pay for the paper.
Monarchy Party slogans
The Monarchy Party had a wide selection of slogans that they emblazoned on posters and other signs. Some were specific to locations. Banners spray-painted onto sheets were hung from the girls-only dormitories that said "The King Slept Here". Some were as simple as a sign that said "Bribes" that was hung above a table filled with donuts on the day of the election. When campus workers dug a trench to bury pipes behind the library, the Monarchists hung a sign that read "Moat Construction Project Brought to You by the King." When opponents tried to remove the sign, workers prevented them from doing so.The group produced dozens of flyers that combined catchy slogans with appropriate historical engravings of monarchs, torture, and jousting. These flyers were extremely popular on campus and many students collected them, putting up Monarchy "shrines" in their dorm rooms. All of which fed the enthusiasm for the party.
- "Vote once for the king, and you'll never have to vote again"
- "99% the power and 1/10 the responsibility"
- "Shut up and Obey"
- "There is no confidence like divine right"
- "We put the class back in the ruling class"
- "A Political Party is Still a Party"
- "Voice your Apathy! Vote Monarchy"
- "We're Looking for a few Elite Nobles."
- "Don't think of it as gaining a king, think of it as losing a president"
- "Monarchy is Love"
- "Monarchy, Rule by Divine Right"
- "Don't Get Caught on the Wrong End of a Pillaging Horde!"
- "A Pheasant for every Peasant"
- "Women's Liberation" (This slogan was illustrated by the Coronation Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.)
- "Tacete et Parete"
Monarchy Party Platform
The party produced an election platform that was about a third satirical jabs at the campus establishment, a third royalist history jokes, and a third serious proposals. Many voters had trouble sorting out which items were which. However, it is strange to see how many of the more outlandish platform planks have been implemented in succeeding years by the school administration, most notably woodchippingWoodchipping
Woodchipping is the act and industry of chipping wood for pulp, processed wood products, and mulch.-Papermaking:Timber is converted to woodchips and sold, primarily, for pulp production used in paper manufacture...
Woodward Avenue, a major thoroughfare that dangerously cut through the middle of campus, the installation of a snack bar/cafe in the library, and the current administrative pursuit of the Greek Relocation Program (the majority of FSU's Greek organizations are now in an area called Heritage Grove which is over a mile away from campus). A few of the Monarchy Party Platform's greatest hits:
- "We will annex Poland."
- "Expand the FSU bookstore so that it carries more books than sweatshirts."
- (Another election) "Change the Union Bookstore's name to the Union Gift Shop"
- "Protection for all whales on campus."
- "Authorize privateers to raid and loot other campuses to augment student government budget."
- "Cross-campus ski lift to be paid for by new FSU lottery."
- (Another election) "Construct a subway on campus to connect with the new University Center."
- "Provide more free phones in the Student Union." (Not humorous, but one which they actually accomplished before gaining power.)
- "Offset future tuition hikes by seeking corporate sponsors."
- "Campus police must patrol on horseback and become proficient in the use of the lance or mace."
- "Greek Relocation Program: Move all Greek houses to one area farther from campus. Panhellenic events will be easier to organize, beer trucks can make one-stop delivery, and new areas for parking will be opened up close to campus."
University of Maryland Monarchist Party
The University of Maryland's political group referred to itself as the Monarchist Party. It had the same goals as FSU's party, but it started much earlier. The actually organization date is uncertain, but some sources put it starting as far back as 1969 or possibly 1972. This seems to be the start date of the Markland Medieval Mercenary MilitiaMarkland Medieval Mercenary Militia
Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia (sometimes known as the Markland Medieval Militia also as "Markland Co." and its members as Marklanders is a non-profit historical educational organization, incorporated in Maryland...
and there is some evidence that Monarchist Party split from the Militia to make sure it would continue to get funded by the Student Government Association. It was not until 1985 that they got elected, and at that point they won the top slot by taking the Student Body Presidency. This first elected student king was King Tom II, AKA Tom Cooper, now a police officer in the DC area. Also serving in the first court were Queen Virginia, Lord High Chancellor Duke Sir Paul, and Chancellor of Exchequer Prince Jim.
Campaign
King Tom II's campaign was based around a beer moat. "Mr. Cooper promised to order construction of a 'Security moat' circling the campus and filled with 'cold lager.' A popular campaign slogan was "Moat Vonarchist". He also decreed that any thermonuclear devices 'full design, assembled and tested' on the Maryland campus should be heavily taxed". When questioned about his opinion on campus environmental group, MaryPIRG, the King answered that he "used to date her sister".Another popular campaign slogan was "Both the SGA (Student Government Association) and the Monarchist Party are jokes. But one of them isn't funny." This was in reference to alleged corruption of previous Student Body Governments, which has never been proven one way or the other.
The Monarchist Party's main opposition was a group backed by the fraternities. The opposing group spent their entire campaign allocation of $1500.00 on posters, buttons, "Get out the vote" shuttle buses, etc. King Tom was said to have spent approximately $4.97 one afternoon on video games at the Student Union arcade, and a submarine sandwich for lunch. Another source of revenue was an enclosed wall display with a paper troth between the sliding glass doors into a Dixie cup. behind the cup was a drawing of King Tom as a M-16 carrying soldier with a smiley face yelling "Kill, Kill, Kill". All of the Monarchist Party campaign material was made by those running for office, and their supporters.
As time went on during the campaign, it became clear that the Monarchist Party was mustering more support than they ever had in past years. In order to keep the support building, a new slogan and poster was devised. It showed three crudely drawn cows and was handwritten in magic marker "This is the year, this is the beer, here are some cows". This new slogan was thought up by King Tom's friend, Timothy Smith.
Election
King Tom II carried out his first campaign promise as soon as he was elected. He demanded a re-count. The re-count was denied by the administration of U-Md. A local reporter interviewing King Tom suggested the Monarchists had made a mockery of the election, to which King Tom replied "It's pronounced 'Monarchy.'" As his victory was proclaimed, King Tom was held aloft in a chair on the balcony of the side lobby of the Student Union to the chants of "Beer! Moats! Monarchy!". King Tom would later be received at court by King Olav V of NorwayOlav V of Norway
Olav V was the king of Norway from 1957 until his death. A member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, Olav was born in the United Kingdom as the son of King Haakon VII of Norway and Queen Maud of Norway...
.
Re-election
A year later, King Tom II, became the first person to ever be re-elected as head of the University of Maryland SGA. One of the people he defeated was Jim Risner. Having run an even cheaper campaign than the Monarchist Party, Jim was brought on board and dubbed Sir James of Parking Lot 4.King James
In 1988 Jim Risner became the next king to be elected and was crowned King James I. The main rallying cry for this election was 'Vote Moat or Implode'. In addition to keeping true to the longstanding Monarchist Party platform plank of constructing a beer filled moat King James attempted to get jousting performed during halftime at the Maryland Terrapin football games. He defined much of the college monarchist movement when he was quoted as saying: We figure college should be fun, It's possible to be competent and fun, and that's what we're doing.External links
- The Monarchy Party's official Web Site - contains a video of King Chuck's coronation