100 years ago in The Record

Wednesday, March 21, 1917

President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to move the date for a special session of Congress up from April 16 to April 2 only makes it more likely that he will ask legislators to declare war on Germany.

The Congress elected last November normally wouldn’t meet until the fall, but the President called an early session, which now will start even earlier, in order to present “a communication by the executive on grave questions of national policy which should be taken under immediate consideration.”

The Wilson administration broke off diplomatic relations with Germany last month after German Uboats resumed unrestricted warfare against shipping bound for its enemies, France and Great Britain. Neither that action nor the arming of American merchant ships has deterred the German navy.

Last weekend’s news of more sinkings has proven the last straw for most Americans.

“The President has followed the only available course,” The Record states on today’s editorial page, “Since the United States learned Sunday of the outrages Germany had committed upon the high seas against the honor of the republic and the lives of its citizens there has been no dissenting voice.”

Since the 1915 sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania killed more than 100 American passengers, many Americans have been impatient for President Wilson to take decisive action against Germany. The Record was one of many papers that criticized the President for his “stumbling conscience.” While the paper does not retract its criticism today, our editors allow now that there may have been some wisdom in Wilson’s course.

“A citizenship divided by racial differences and political antagonism has been welded together into a unified body by the reiter-ant outrages of Germany…. America now stands with unbroken line in opposition to Prussian barbarism and Teuton insults.

On early points of difference there may have been excuse for division; to-day the only argument America desires is the arbitrament of steel.

And this has been due, in no small measure, to the fact that the President followed public opinion instead of leading it.”

MAME FAY

A police court jury today takes just five minutes to accuse Mary Fay, better know to posterity as “Mame Fay,” of the charge of keeping a “disorderly house,” i.e. a house of prostitution, at 1725 Sixth Avenue.

The case for the prosecution fails, our reporter notes, because the only witnesses against Fay were three private detectives from Albany.

As police court magistrate James F. Byron reminds the jury, to hold weight in New York State a private detective’s testimony must be corroborated by someone outside the profession.

Therefore, three detectives cold not corroborate each other.