She's not going to commandeer a train, as Teddy Roosevelt did on his way out of Helena in 1912.
Horses aren't welcome in Washington-Grizzly Stadium, so even if Clinton does make an (unlikely) outdoor appearance, it's safe to say she won't get a 40-man escort from the Missoula County Sheriff's Posse. Thomas Dewey did, in 1948 at old Dornblaser Field a couple hundred yards to the south, en route to the front porch of the White House.
Presidents and presidential wannabes don't frequent these parts every day. When they do drop in, their visits tend to be memorable - and maybe a bit over the top.
Roosevelt's junket in 1912 was his third to Missoula, though none came when he was president (from 1901-1909). It's a fairly famous photo, the one of Teddy gesticulating from a podium at the corner of Higgins and Broadway to hordes of people listening from the street while others hang from the windows or perch on the portico of the Western Montana Bank building behind him.
Roosevelt wasn't running for anything that blustery April day, but after a parade from his private rail car at the Northern Pacific depot to the Florence Hotel, he delivered two addresses on campus and the big one downtown.
“When you play, play hard; play with all the strength there is in you. And when you work, don't play at all,” he exhorted an estimated - key word in these visits - 2,000 schoolchildren in front of the Women's Hall.
“There are 50,000 people in town today according to my guess, and I don't guess wrong very often,” W.C. Parker, a moving picture man, told a reporter that day.
Roosevelt arrived at 7 a.m. and spent a day and night in Missoula. His next visit, on Sept. 9, 1912, was briefer - and more politically motivated. Teddy wanted to be president again, and he was running on the Progressive ticket, nicknamed the “Bull Moose Party.”
The chairman of the party's national committee? None other than Missoula's own Joseph Dixon, a former senator, future governor and, at the time, owner of the Daily Missoulian.
That was the day Roosevelt “drove” the train. He'd spent the previous night in Helena, and as his train started chugging up Mullan Pass, Teddy asked the engineer on the “helper” locomotive in back if he could come on board. Soon he'd donned gloves and was learning the rudiments of running the engine. After 30 minutes of that, he took over the controls.
“By George, this is bully,” Roosevelt is said to have said as he worked the levers and tooted the whistle.
Some 2,500 people greeted him at the Missoula depot at the north end of Higgins, where he made a 20-minute stop and short speech from the rear platform.
“Ladies and gentlemen - and little bull mooses,” he began, then paused and looked at all the youngsters in the crowd.
That was in the middle of the afternoon. Presidential aspirants have reached Missoula at all times of days.
Dewey's speech at Dornblaser Field on Sept. 29, 1948 started at nearly 10 p.m. after his “Victory” special train was delayed more than an hour out of Spokane. While they waited, 6,000 fans were treated to a fireworks display.
In May of 1950, President Harry Truman spoke briefly from the rear platform of his special train - at 7:25 a.m.
When some members of the early morning crowd chanted, “We want Margaret” - referring to Truman's 26-year-old daughter - the president replied that she was still in bed.
(Random anecdote: Margaret Truman, who died just two months ago at age 83, was trying to launch a singing career in 1950. Later that year, a Washington Post reviewer wrote she was “extremely attractive on the stage Š but cannot sing very well. She is flat a good deal of the time.” Dad, the president, wrote to the critic: “I have never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and plenty of beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below.”
Harry knew how to give 'em hell.)
Chances are the ink won't be dry on this story before someone debunks this next statement: That railcar speech by Truman in 1950 and one by Eisenhower at the airport four years later are the only two public appearances in Missoula by a sitting U.S. president.
Billings and Great Falls got John F. Kennedy in September 1963, two months before he was assassinated. Other presidents - Franklin Roosevelt jumps to mind - passed through on trains after stops at other Montana venues. Thomas Jefferson sent a proxy named Meriwether Lewis. George Washington wanted to come, but couldn't get the bus started.
Eisenhower touched down at the airport on Sept. 22, 1954, at the start of a three-day campaign hop from Denver to Missoula to Walla Walla, Wash., to Los Angeles.
Dressed in a gray suit and a gray Homburg, Ike never actually made it to the U.S. Forest Service's new $700,000 Aerial Fire Depot. His press stand was located near the runway, where there was a throng that approached or surpassed those at Grizzly football games these days.
Parking space for 7,800 cars was established across Highway 10 and the NP tracks. The Montana Highway Patrol supervisor called the crowd 30,000.
“Other estimates ranged down to 20,000, but one thing was certain - the estimated 7,500 cars caused one of the worst traffic jams ever recorded in this area,” a news report said.
Eisenhower, the former war hero, was presented a scroll that made him a smokejumper, as well as the helmet that was standard gear for all jumpers.
“Try it on!” urged several in the crowd. Ike declined, but as the shouts continued, the popular Republican president acquiesced. He donned the white headpiece, even pulling down the metal mask, as the crowd roared.
Then he was off to Walla Walla.
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