100 years ago in The Record

Sunday, June 24, 1917

The baccalaureate service for the graduating class of Lansingburgh High School takes place tonight at the First Presbyterian Church, The Record reports. Fifty-six members of the Class of 1917 attend the service after marching from the high school. The nondenominational service includes First Presbyterian’s pastor, Rev. Charles H. Walker, Rev. D. M. Countermine of Olivet Presbyterian, Rev. Russell A. Gates of Millis Memorial Baptist and Rev. Charles M. Nickerson of Trinity Episcopalian. Walker’s sermon is an exception to the trend of 1917 sermons. He never mentions the U.S. war against Germany, focusing instead on “The Call of the Christ.” “Think of Jesus Christ as an historical person, as real and potent in the moral life of the world as are gravitation and geometry in the world of science and affairs,” Walker says. Do you realize that he is the biggest figure in our present day life, that He dominates a larger area of human thought and action than all the wise and great of all the centuries? “Let me remind you of this fact, that at this very hour there is not an edict of any empire or nation, nor a document of any court, nor a newspaper of any land, nor a letter in all the mail of the world, that does not by its dating bear witness to the supreme fact of the Christ.”

TROY PLAYGROUNDS

“Rambler” writes the Sunday Budget’s “In And About Troy” column. In today’s column, Rambler claims that “Thus far Troy has paid little attention to the matter of organized playgrounds.

“The four playgrounds we now have are the fruits of the hard, discouraging [sic?] work of the Women’s Civic League…. As a result of the tireless efforts of these women, we have the playgrounds of Prospect and Beman Parks and in the North and South End, but the annual appropriations for these grounds are not creditable to a city that can purchase nearly four millions of dollars’ worth of Liberty Loan bonds and give thousands of dollars to the Red Cross and [YMCA] in this horrible world war.”

While philanthropic attention is focused on European war victims, Rambler warns that “If we are not careful in the forthcoming stress of wartimes we shall have much the same conditions in America as have obtained in the war-stricken lands across the sea.”

Juvenile delinquency has increased dramatically on both sides of the war since it began in 1914. Troy “should add more playgrounds and amply provide for them,” or else “the battle with the physical and moral diseases of the nation may yet be lost for lack of provision for play.”