February 9, 2024
By Bill Kleppel
“All roads to the White House lead through Poughkeepsie!”…. are words that have never been uttered. However! Several future presidents visited our town in the years before they’d taken the oath of office. More specifically, their trips included being on or near the stage of our prestigious Bardavon Theater!
Not only is 2024 a presidential election year, it’s also the 155th anniversary of the opening of the Bardavon (originally named the Collingwood Opera House). The Bardavon is the oldest continuously operating theater in New York State.1
Future President Dwight D. Eisenhower in front of the Bardavon in June of 1948.
William McKinley - 1892
On November 1, 1892, a week before the presidential election between Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland, a large Republican Party meeting commenced at the Collingwood Opera House. The attendants were most excited to see the popular Governor from Ohio, William McKinley.
Five hundred people gathered well before the Collingwood was to open at 1:30 pm. The group blocked the theater’s entrance and teemed onto the street. The doors were opened early to alleviate the chaos and soon the entire venue was standing room only.
McKinley had arrived at the Nelson House in the morning, and was greeted by political dignitaries from both parties in the hotel’s parlor. A band was playing patriotic music, and hundreds of onlookers converged on the hotel to get a glimpse of the man.
A tremendous applause met McKinley as he walked onto the stage of the Collingwood. His speech whipped Republican voters into a frenzy, preparing them to cast their votes to re-elect President Harrison. After McKinley sat, Colonel Oliver T. Beard called for three cheers for the President of 1896, William McKinley! 2
All of the shouting and revelry at the Collingwood didn’t help Benjamin Harrison in 1892. Harrison, who defeated incumbent President Grover Cleveland in 1888, was crushed in the rematch, making Cleveland the only person to be elected president in two non-consecutive terms (will history repeat itself 132 years later?). Colonel Beard was prophetic, though. William McKinley was elected to the presidency in 1896.
Theodore Roosevelt - 1898
On October 21, 1898, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, a former New York City Police Commissioner and Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Navy, who made an even bigger name for himself as a “Rough Rider” during the Spanish- American War in Cuba, was on the campaign trail. He entered the race for governor of New York a bit late, but was gaining momentum just before Election Day.
The steady rain in Poughkeepsie didn’t keep away the droves of people who entered the Collingwood that night to hear his speech. Of the large turnout, the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News mentioned the amount of women in attendance. “…Looking from the stage it seemed as if they filled more than half the lower floor,” the journalist quipped.3 Former Vice President and Rhinebeck resident Levi Morton, as well as local tycoon John Jacob Astor IV, were in attendance. Astor heavily financed the war, as well as Roosevelt’s campaign. He also made history years later as a doomed passenger on the RMS Titanic in April of 1912.4
A few weeks later, Roosevelt won the governorship by a narrow one percent margin over Democratic challenger Augustus Van Wyck.5
Theodore Roosevelt filled the vacancy as President McKinley’s running mate in 1900 after the death of Vice President Garret Hobart, from heart failure, in 1899. He would abruptly take the oath of office as President on September 14, 1901, after McKinley’s assassination in Buffalo, New York.
Franklin D. Roosevelt - 1920
The 1920 presidential election pitted Ohio Governor James M. Cox, a democrat, against Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding, a republican. (There have been seven US Presidents from the state of Ohio. Only Virginia, with eight, has had more.)
On Monday, November 1 of that year, another Assistant Secretary of the Navy and local son, the 38-year old Franklin D. Roosevelt of Hyde Park, stepped onto the stage at the Collingwood Theater in front of a crowd of 2,000 people. He was running as the nominee for vice president on the Democratic ticket with Cox. Poughkeepsie was the setting for his final speech of the campaign, with the election being decided the next day. 6
While Harding remained relatively sedentary in Marion, Ohio, utilizing a “front porch” campaign, Cox barnstormed around the country in 1920, traveling approximately 22,000 miles. Franklin and his wife, Eleanor, mirrored this approach, visiting 36 states. Eleanor mentioned the increasing length of Franklin’s speeches in a letter to her mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt. “Ten minutes is always 20, 30 is always 45 & the evening speeches are now about 2 hours!”7 Eleanor was able to cast her vote in this election. The 19th amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920.
Poughkeepsie, as well as Dutchess County, was a bastion of Republican support, so it was no surprise that the Cox-Roosevelt campaign did poorly here.
Post War Europe, along with anarchist terrorist attacks and union riots at home, made the Harding line of a “return to normalcy” very agreeable to most voters. The Harding-Coolidge Republican ticket easily defeated Cox-Roosevelt, winning 404 of the 531 electoral votes.
Even during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s successful presidential runs in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944, he never carried Dutchess County.
FDR at the Nelson House 20 years later during the 1940 Presidential Election Campaign
Dwight D. Eisenhower - 1948
American citizens were petitioning for General Eisenhower to run for president in the contentious year of 1948. The military commander of World War II’s European theatre was one of the most trusted and popular people in the country. Even so, he still wasn’t interested in running...yet.
He was however, interested in visiting Poughkeepsie!
On June 27, 1948, Eisenhower was invited to a luncheon at the Poughkeepsie Chamber of Commerce by Eleanor Roosevelt and the Founder of IBM, Thomas J. Watson. Watson wanted Eisenhower to visit his new company and its facilities. After meeting at the Nelson House9, Eisenhower toured the grounds of IBM. He gave a speech outside one of the company’s larger structures to a crowd of thousands.
The actual Republican nominee for President in 1948, New York Governor Thomas Dewey, decided to visit Dutchess County on the same day… in Pawling.10,11
Nothing against Pawling, but wouldn’t it behoove the person running for the most powerful office in the world to use foresight and intelligence to make his way to Poughkeepsie on the day Ike, Eleanor, and Thomas J. Watson were there?
Day to day decisions like this one might’ve had a negative cumulative effect on Dewey’s campaign. Running against an unpopular president, such as Harry Truman, and opinion polls leaning in his favor, may have made him a bit over confident. Truman shocked the nation by beating Dewey that November.
Four years later, an exceedingly confident Dwight D. Eisenhower ran an overwhelmingly successful campaign against challenger Adlai Stevenson to win the 1952 election by a landslide. I get the feeling Ike experienced quite a few days like that June day in Poughkeepsie in 1948.
References
- “Theater History.” BardavonPresents History of the Bardavon Comments, www.bardavon.org/bardavon/history-of-bardavon/. Accessed 22 Jan. 2024.
- “Gov. M’Kinley’s Speech.” Com, Poughkeepsie Eagle News, 1 Nov. 1892, newscomny.newspapers.com/image/114873301/?terms=%22William%20McKinley%22&pqsid=8 rxob9PEKBVSsOYa0ZyYog%3A3624959%3A276847942 .
- “Great Enthusiasm for Roosevelt.” Com, Poughkeepsie Eagle News, 22 Oct. 1898, newscomny.newspapers.com/image/114664482/ .
- THE ROOSEVELT CAMPAIGN: A LARGE AUDIENCE AT POUGHKEEPSIE LISTENS TO THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FOR GOVERNOR. STATE QUESTIONS DISCUSSED THE COLONEL SAYS THE REPUBLICANS REDUCED THE TAX RATE AND EXACTED LARGER CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE CORPORATIONS. (1898, Oct 22). New York Times (1857-1922)Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/roosevelt-campaign/docview/95538305/se-2
- Miller, Nathan. Theodore Roosevelt: A Life. William Morrow and Company, 1992.“Roosevelt Gives Final Speech of Campaign Here.” Com, Poughkeepsie Eagle News, 2 Nov. 1920, newscomny.newspapers.com/image/114582795/?terms=%22Franklin%20Roosevelt%22&pqsid.
- Schlup, Leonard C., and Donald W. Whisenhunt. It Seems to Me: Selected Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt. University Press of Kentucky, 2001.
- “1920 United States Presidential Election in New York.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Jan. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_United_States_presidential_election_in_New_York#:~:text=Elected%20President&text=New%20York%20was%20won%20by,Cox.
- Butler, Shannon. “No Longer Standing: Buildings of Poughkeepsie – Gone but Not Forgotten - the Nelson House.” Poughkeepsie Public Library District, 6 Dec. 2019, poklib.org/no-longer-standing-buildings-of-poughkeepsie-gone-but-not-forgotten-the-nelson-house/.
- Rozell, Edwin H. “6,000 Welcome Dewey at Pawling.” Poughkeepsie Sunday New Yorker, 27 June 1948, p. 1.
- Emsley, Joseph W. “Eisenhower Extols Free Enterprise.” Poughkeepsie Sunday New Yorker, 27 June 1948, p. 1.
- Eisenhower in Front of Bardavon. 27 June 1948. Poughkeepsie, New York.
- “FDR -Nelson House - Dutchess County Historical Society.” Dutchess County Historical Society -, 3 Nov. 2022, dchsny.org/nelson-house/.