100 years ago in The Record
Wednesday, June 20, 1917
By the middle of the second day of the American Red Cross fundraising campaign, The Record reports that Troy has raised “practically one-third of the quota … in one-third of the time given. The Collar City has until Monday, June 25, to raise $150,000 as part of the Red Cross’s nationwide $100,000,000 wartime fundraising campaign. As of press time for our evening edition, the city has raised $46,444.20. That amount is equivalent in buying power to just over $874,000 in 2017. Organizers believed that meeting Troy’s quota would be a challenge after residents spent more than $3 million on Liberty Bonds last week. The federal government raised more than $2,000,000,000 for the war against Germany through the sale of bonds that can be redeemed with interest after the war. “It may not be known by the public in general,” our reporter notes, “that it is all right to turn over Liberty bonds to the Red Cross fund. This is entirely satisfactory, and it furnishes a road for the man who feels he has used all the money he possibly could in buying a bond.” The Red Cross campaign got an early boost when more than $25,000 in donations were announced at yesterday’s kickoff luncheon at the Rensselaer Hotel. Door-to-door fundraisers didn’t fare quite as well. One team captain only managed to raise a dollar yesterday, but reports that he’s brought in $300 so far today.
Troy Chamber of Commerce president E. Harold Cluett tells a heartwarming story about the generosity of his gardener, Michael O’Neil, who placed a fivedollar bill on Cluett’s breakfast table this morning. O’Neil “wanted to do every bit he felt he could do – and that was it,” Cluett says.
“This is just the spirit that is wanted,” our reporter editorializes, “There are men in Troy, of course, to whom $5 means as much as $5,000 does to some. And $5 of such a man, it is pointed out, will be appreciated just as much as larger gifts on the part of persons who can afford them.”
Organizers are holding luncheons daily at the Rensselaer during the drive. Monsignor John Walsh of St. Peter’s Church describes the campaign as a new crusade at this afternoon’s luncheon.
“Ours is another crusade and the goal is not the Holy Sepulchre. Our enemy is not the Mahometan,” Walsh says, “Our goal is the realization of that mercy and fellowship and soothing of pain and sorrow of which our Lord God is the exalted exemplar.”
America’s allies in the war “are crying to us for aid…. And these are only the first appeals; others will follow.”