Wednesday, November 3, 2010

A Hundred Years Ago in New York Politics

In 1910, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected State Senator to represent what was then the 26th Senatorial District in New York. That was the last time a Democrat was elected to represent this district--now the 41st--in the New York State Senate, and yesterday's election didn't change that. The results in the November election a hundred years ago were somewhat different from yesterday's results. How different is made clear by these items, which appeared in the Cold Spring Recorder on November 11, 1910. 

The Election
Tuesday was a Democratic day and no mistake. John A. Dix was elected Governor and the entire State ticket was victorious.

The State is Democrat by 65,000 with a Democratic majority in both branches of the legislature insuring the election of a Democratic United States Senator in place of Chauncey M. Depew.

The election of Richard E. Connell to Congress gives the 21st District its first Democratic representative in the National Congress since 1875.

Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated John Schlosser by a margin of nearly 1200 votes, and proved the resentment of the plain people against the tactics of the "Old Guard." . . .

The Democrats will control the National House of Representatives. The Senate remains Republican by a narrow margin.

New York, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Oregon, West Virginia and Wyoming have moved into the Democratic column and changed the political map. This is "new nationalism" in the right direction.

This great popular overturning which has given the Democratic party a large measure of power in state and national affairs places upon its leaders a great responsibility.

By strict adherence to the great principles of liberty, justice and common honesty that marked the times of Jefferson, Madison, Jackson and Cleveland, the old Democratic party may perpetuate its new lease of power and command the confidence and support of all honest, right thinking men.

Let us begin right here in New York State, by sending the best man we can get to the United States Senate.

The New Senator
Franklin D. Roosevelt has been elected a member of the State Senate from this 26th Senatorial district. Mr. Roosevelt, nominated at the Democratic Senatorial convention, will succeed John F. Schlosser. He is a spendid man to go to the State Senate from this district. The Enterprise took much satisfaction in the past three weeks in advancing the candidacy of Mr. Roosevelt, and in commending his candidacy to the intelligence of its great family of readers. These readers have confidence in the Enterprise because they know they can rely on its statements.

And the Enterprise now stands on every statement it made in relation to the fitness of Mr. Roosevelt for the office, prior to the election. He is young, clean, aggressive, able and independent, and will prove an ideal senator and a worthy man to work in one branch of the legislature, in conjunction with Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler in the other. And both will ever be found working and exerting themselves for what they think is right for the people at large. --Po'keepsie Enterprise

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