Lyndon LaRouche
Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. (born September 8, 1922) is an American political activist and founder of the LaRouche movement. He has written on economic, scientific, and political topics, as well as on history, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. LaRouche was a presidential candidate in each election from 1976 to 2004, running once for his own U.S. Labor Party and seven times for the Democratic Party nomination.
Background
Early life
LaRouche was born in Rochester, New Hampshire, the oldest of three children of Jessie Lenore (née Weir) and Lyndon H. LaRouche, Sr. His paternal grandfather's family emigrated to the United States from Rimouski, Quebec, whereas his maternal grandfather's family hailed from Scotland. His father worked for the United Shoe Machinery Corporation in Rochester before the family moved to Lynn, Massachusetts.
His parents became Quakers after his father converted from Catholicism. They forbade him from fighting with other children, even in self-defence, which he said led to "years of hell" from bullies at school. As a result, he spent much of his time alone, taking long walks through the woods and identifying in his mind with great philosophers. He wrote that, between the ages of twelve and fourteen, he read philosophy extensively, embracing the ideas of Leibniz, and rejecting those of Hume, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Rousseau, and Kant. He graduated from Lynn's English High School in 1940. In the same year, the Lynn Quakers expelled his father from the group, for reportedly accusing other Quakers of misusing funds, while writing under the pen name Hezekiah Micajah Jones. LaRouche and his mother resigned in sympathy for his father.
