This day in The Record in 1916

Tuesday, September 26, 1916

lend no ear to any faction and will work solely to bring about party success. I think we should eliminate all factional feeling and personalities, and I will do what I can to that end.

“I believe that men in the party who have been antagonizing each other should be brought together and required to bury their differences for the party’s good, all working for the success of the candidates named. We have nominated good men from the top to the bottom of the ticket, and no Republican need be ashamed to go to the polls and work for the success of the party.”

Powers assures the committee of his “hearty support” affirming that “his interest in the success of the party is as great as that of any member of the committee or the county organization.”

City and county Republicans plan a “rip-snorting” campaign for a ticket led by presidential candidate and former New York governor Charles Evans Hughes. They plan to bring Hughes to Troy for a “monster mass meeting” at Bolton Hall in Lansingburgh sometime in October. Hughes hopes to unseat Democratic incumbent Woodrow Wilson.

The big Republican rally in downtown Troy will be held at Harmony Hall and will be headlined by Governor Charles S. Whitman. Dates for both rallies have yet to be announced.

Rensselaer County Sheriff William P. Powers lose his bid to lead the Troy Republican city committee in the fall election campaign but remains on good terms with the rest of the GOP, The Record reports.

Powers abstains from the vote for chairman by the fiveman city advisory committee, as does his rival, John F. Knaupp. The other three committee members vote for Knaupp.

In explaining his preference for Knaupp, Alba M. Ide assures Powers that “he had no personal objections” to the sheriff, “but he believed the sheriff, in view of certain conditions, might be regarded in the light of a factional choice.”

Powers broke with the local Republican leadership earlier this month by backing Robert Bacon in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate. Most local leaders backed Rep. William M. Calder, who defeated Bacon by a narrow margin in the primary.

Knaupp claims that he never sought the position (as opposed to Powers), and Powers reminds him that “I wanted to be chairman of the committee but I would not have sought it if you, Mr. Chairman, had not put the idea in my head and had not suggested me at the first meeting as a good man for the place.”

The new chairman assures the committee that “I will