100 years ago in The Record
Friday, May 4, 1917
A dispute between labor contractors turns violent tonight as one of the Troy men ends up in Troy hospital with a bullet wound in his right lung. Michael Bocca is under arrest for shooting Tony Mascatiello at nearly point-blank range as the latter left James Esposito’s store at 363 Fourth Street. The two Italian immigrants had worked together as contractors before becoming competitors recently. “Mascatiello and Bocca every spring hire a number of men to do wood cutting in the rural section of the county,” The Record reports, “Bocca is said to have secured a number of these laborers but within the past few days some of them left to enter Mascatiello’s employ, it being claimed that the latter paid them more per cord for their work.” Mascatiello, whom doctors believe will recover, tells investigators that he spent several hours with Bocca earlier today but “the latter made no mention of anything which would lead Mascatiello to believe that his assailant was displeased with anything.” Shortly before 9 p.m. Mascatiello goes shopping at Esposito’s. He finds Bocca waiting outside as he leaves the store. “Bocca whipped out the revolver and, holding it close to Mascatiello, fired. Several Italian residents of the vicinity scattered as Mascatiello staggered and fell, while Bocca started on a run up Fourth street. No one made any attempt to help the wounded man nor did anyone try to stop his assailant.”
The shooter practically runs into Patrolman Charles Wager, who’s heading toward Esposito’s after hearing the shot. Pretending to be a panicked witness, Bocca tells Wager he doesn’t know what happened. Wager searches him and finds the revolver, which “still had an odor of smoke on it,” in Bocca’s overcoat pocket.
Wager hauls Bocca back to the vicinity of Esposito’s, where Mascatiello identifies his attacker. As “a crowd of foreigners swarmed around the officer and his prisoner,” Dr. Hugh V. Foley treats Mascatiello before sending him to the hospital. Bocca, who has no permit for his weapon, refuses to talk to investigators.
Education
H. P. Silver, chaplain of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, addresses students at the Emma Willard School this afternoon on the subject of “Education.”
“The speaker, though giving a serious address, had a very pleasing personality,” our reporter writes. After explaining how the word “education” means “a drawing out or development of what is within,” his remarks take a patriotic turn.
Noting that “patriotism is not all physical,” Silver tells the students that “Each woman, each girl, can be a help to the country by being loyal and by devoting herself to what is best.”