Fitzhugh Hall

Category: Meeting Site

Able to seat 2200, Fitzhugh Hall was the site of many public events. William Jennings Bryan, Democratic presidential candidate, visited Rochester on October 19, 1900; he spoke from the balcony of the Powers Hotel to 30,000 people gathered on Main Street before proceeding to Fitzhugh Hall where he addressed another 20,000. Running against both Bryan and Republican candidate McKinley, Socialist Democratic Party candidate Eugene V. Debs was paraded to Fitzhugh Hall on November 2, 1900 by 600 working people and socialists; there he reminded his audience that "the men who build Pullman cars do not ride in them. Andrew Carnegie would not have an income of $68,000 per day if he had not been able to exploit the labor of thousands of his fellows." And he urged that "it is better to vote right and be unsuccessful than to vote wrong and win." Debs appeared in the hall again on February 8, 1903, speaking to 2000 on the ills of capitalism and proposing an alternative system.