100 years ago in The Record
Friday, July 13, 1917
A war of words has broken out between Troy public safety commissioner John F. Cahill and Rensselaer County Sheriff William P. Powers over responsibility for keeping the Collar City’s gambling dens and disorderly houses closed.
Cahill, a Democrat, announced a crackdown on gambling dens earlier this week. In doing so, he took a rhetorical swipe at Powers, a term-limited Republican but a possible mayoral candidate, claiming that the city acted after the county official failed to do so.
Powers has changed the subject to Troy’s disorderly houses, which 2017 readers would call brothels. He sent Cahill a letter identifying known “disorderly premises” and their proprietors and warning the commissioner to stop them from re-opening.
In a reply published today, Cahill claims that the sheriff’s letter, which appeared in the newspapers before it reached the commissioner’s desk, “contains no information,” since “the matters to which you refer have been of public record for several months.”
Cahill recalls that Powers had “publicly assumed the responsibility for keeping those houses closed,” and claims that “You now appear to have abandoned that task. Is this a confession that you were unable or unwilling to perform it?”
While the sheriff has boasted of closing down pool halls and gambling dens in the past, “the conduct of these gambling places that you want the public to believe you had closed became a source of such numerous complaints from businessmen, clergymen, parents, social workers and others, that this department, after having given you a fair opportunity to make good, became convinced that you were unequal to the performance of your self-imposed duty.”
Powers drafts a reply tonight for publication in tomorrow’s paper.
“You are in error when you infer that I have abandoned the task of keeping the disorderly houses closed,” the sheriff writes, “These houses have not been closed during your entire administration of six years, although such numerous complaints and arrests had been made from the district that you were undoubtedly acquainted with their existence. I was compelled to infer, therefore, that you condoned their existence.”
Earlier this year, Powers ordered raids on the Sixth Avenue disorderly houses and ordered alleged prostitutes onto trains headed out of town. He informs Cahill that “It is the simplest matter imaginable for you to station a few men in uniform in the district and thus prevent a resumption of business there.”
As for Cahill’s recent crackdown on gambling, Powers hints that the commissioner ordered those places to close simply to preempt raids by sheriff’s deputies that would have resulted in “prosecuting – not admonishing the offenders.”