100 years ago in The Record
— Kevin Gilbert
Tuesday, June 19, 1917
Troy’s $150,000 fund drive for the American Red Cross kicks off this afternoon with a luncheon at the Rensselaer Hotel that raises one-sixth of the goal at one sitting.
The Red Cross has set a $100,000,000 goal nationwide for this week’s drive. The money raised will go toward medical relief work for U.S. soldiers headed to Europe for the war against Germany.
New York secretary of state Francis Hugo is the guest speaker at the kickoff luncheon. “Trojans have no right to expect [their] young men to go away without assurance that when they find themselves in trouble they will be attended to properly,” he tells the gathering.
“Trojans should understand the horrors of modern warfare. Those who have not seen it can not have a real idea of what it is; those who have not read of it a great deal have less. But they should know that it is awful and they should give of their money to lessen its terrors…. The test of the civilization of Troy and every other city will be in what they subscribe now for the young soldiers.”
After France, Great Britain and Russia have spent almost three years fighting Germany, Troy Chamber of Commerce president E. Harold Cluett asks, “Are the American people going to let the rest of a liberty loving world struggle and suffer for us and eventually be stricken down, taking with them in their fall the only barrier that now stands between the Germans and ourselves?
“Unless we in America wake up, unless we open our pocketbooks and our hears, then there may be a German governor-general in our city hall some day.”
Cluett reminds his audience that “We have profited, per force, from the sacrifice and sufferings of our brave allies. We have become the market place of the world. The war has sent great riches, great prosperity to our country. Nearly three years of this prosperity have been vouchsafed to the American people.”
The U.S. declared war on Germany on April 6, in response to German submarine attacks on American merchant ships bound for Britain, France and their allies.
“The crisis in this war is at hand,” Cluett warns, “and the United States must play her part or prepare for such humiliation as a free people never endured.”
During the luncheon, more than $25,000 in pledges are announced. Following the event, a 175-man fundraising force fans out in teams of six, on average, to make personal appeals to approximately 6,000 Trojans over the next week. At the same time, Boy Scouts put up signs promoting the drive throughout the Collar City.