100 years ago in The Record
Friday, June 1, 1917
With the U.S. at war and patriotism at a peak of intensity, a Watervliet trolley passenger learns that it’s the wrong time to insult the President or the troops.
Despite a Record headline reading “NEGRO’S INSULTING SPEECH RESENTED BY GUARDSMEN,” the incident isn’t necessarily racially charged. Newspapers in the early 20th century have a habit of identifying the ethnicity of non-WASP people (Italians, “Polanders,” etc.) involved in criminal or merely violent incidents.
There are two “colored men” sitting together on the streetcar as it stops at Fourteenth street to pick up two uniformed National Guard soldiers. One of the black passengers reportedly says, “Here’s a couple of tin soldiers before making a crack “directed against the nation’s head, and just as insulting.”
Woodrow Wilson is the first southern-born president since Andrew Johnson left office in 1869. Reportedly a fan of the racist movie “The Birth of A Nation,” Wilson is regarded as one of the most racist U.S. presidents by some historians. Whether that has anything to do with whatever the Watervliet man says on the streetcar is left unclear by our reporter.
Whatever the context, the insult to the president doesn’t go over with most of the other passengers. “Immediately the colored man was yanked from his seat, and when at Thirteenth street, he, with the consent of the passengers aboard, was thrown into the street, the soldiers letting the car go by in order to give further chastisement.”
Meanwhile, “the man’s companion made no effort to interfere with the proceedings,” and the other passengers make no effort to throw him off the trolley.
Pulse of the people
For one more day The Record dedicates its letters column to responses to the controversial May 24 letter from “River Street” calling on the Troy police to round up downtown street beggars, some of whom are physically handicapped. “If ‘River Street’ professes to be a Christian, it is my opinion that he is a hypocrite, plain and simple,” writes “Good Advice,” while “Healthy” guesses that the original writer “must have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth” and “no doubt lives for himself only.” From Watervliet, H. N. Van Antwerp advises, “Until such time as we reorganize our methods for dealing with the very poor it would be a good idea to let them get an honest living whatever way they can, and not advise them to apply for help, or advise the cops to run them in.” Finally, another Troy reader writes that if “River Street” really wants to rid downtown of undesirables, he should have its cigar stores closed down.