Every four years, we go through a Presidential election cycle and we get tired of the negative advertising and hope the next cycle will be better (it never is).

There is, however, great excitement as we elect our new President.

I love politics and have a minor collection of Presidential campaign memorabilia, but oddly enough I have never attended a rally. Generally, my candidates have not gotten close enough for me to attend.

Over the past 104 years, several candidates have actually stopped in Dowagiac — but none in my time living in the area. Woodrow Wilson’s train stopped near the viaduct for a speech in 1912 and John Dewey rolled through town on a whistle stop train tour in 1948 — anecdotal evidence suggests he did not speak in town.

Vice-President Dan Quayle visited Southwestern Michigan College for a speech in 1992. The last President to sniff Dowagiac’s air was President Bill Clinton when his whistle stop train came through town, though he did not stop.

Clinton was the last candidate to do a whistle stop train tour — it is a nostalgic trip for sure, but most of us would probably welcome the excitement it brings to town. The whistle stop tours were meant to bring the candidates to many towns along the railroad line for brief speeches.

The most famous politician to stop in Dowagiac was former President Theodore Roosevelt and he attracted a massive crowd. Roosevelt is fondly remembered today (he is my favorite President in history), but he may have been more popular at the end of his term in 1908.

He declared prior to the 1904 election that he would not seek re-election in 1908 and he regretted the decision throughout his second term. While his chosen successor, William Howard Taft, was elected in 1908, Roosevelt found Taft’s execution of the office lacking and ran against Taft for the Republican Party nomination in 1912.

This is what brought President Roosevelt to Dowagiac on Saturday, March 30, 1912. Roosevelt mounted a serious campaign and embarked upon a whistle stop train tour that would take him through Dowagiac. According to the Daily News, “Nothing in months has created so much interest as the exclusive announcement that the famous Colonel and Rough Rider would halt his special train here tomorrow…and make a five minute speech from the rear platform of his train.”

In the pre-television (and even pre-radio) era, this was the ONLY way to see or hear a candidate.  The Daily News noted, “Few people in Dowagiac ever had the pleasure of seeing him; very few in Cass County or this section of the state have heard him speak.”

The Interurban, which ran from Benton Harbor-St. Joseph to Dowagiac, announced a special schedule to bring people over from Berrien County for the day and the Daily News anticipated visitors to town from across the region numbering in the thousands!

City officials made arrangements to blow the “mocking bird whistle” at the Water Works station when the train left Niles. At that time, all the businesses in town would close for Roosevelt’s visit and anyone who wanted to hear the popular ex-President could do so.

Under a banner headline of “Monster Crowd Sees Roosevelt: Colonel Talks For 5 Minutes,” the Daily News reported on Roosevelt’s brief visit. After a late departure from Chicago, Roosevelt arrived in Dowagiac about one hour late at 3:30 p.m. Opening his remarks with “Ladies, gentlemen and babies,” the former President mostly discussed a bill to establish a primary system in Michigan.

Roosevelt was interested in a primary system as he had won most of the states that had primaries in 1912. After five minutes, he informed the crowd he wished to spend more time with them, but “all he could say was good luck and good bye.”

The crowd was massive with the Daily News mentioning that interest in the visit “was general. It was not partisan. It extended to all classes of people and to people of all political factions.”

Photographs of the event confirm the large crowd—it must have been an exciting day for the city indeed.

Roosevelt went on to lose the nomination to Taft in a contested convention in Chicago. Roosevelt bolted the party and formed the Progressive Party (nicknamed the Bull Moose Party) and ran a third-party campaign. This effectively split the Republican votes and the election went to Wilson.

The 1912 campaign can be remembered in Dowagiac for having brought a former and future President to town.

 

Steve Arseneau is the director of the Dowagiac Area History Museum. He resides in Niles with his wife, Christina, and children, Theodore and Eleanor.