100years ago inTheRecord
Wednesday, Aug. 29, 1917
While Troy’s National Guard troops began their trip south for regular army training earlier this week, some of the men selected in last July’s draft lottery will begin their training next week, The Record reports. The city’s three draft districts received orders from the adjutant general this morning to send 5% of the drafted men so far accepted into service to mobilization camp on September 5. Only a handful of men from each district will be mobilized. The military is asking for 5% of the men who have passed their physical exams without requesting exemptions from service. The men examined this month are just a fraction of the cohort whose numbers were selected in the July 20 lottery. Since the first district’s quota was 56 men, three will leave town next week, while two of the third distict’s 44 men will join them. “In selecting men for the first percentage [ each] board is directed to send, if possible, men of previous military experience, cooks, mechanics and men with trades,” our reporter notes.
RECORD TOBACCO FUND
Our paper today joins a growing number of newspapers across the country that have started fundraising campaigns to provide tobacco and cigarettes to the troops headed to Europe for the world war. The Record will accept donations of 25 cents and up to pay for care packages consisting of two packages of Lucky Strike cigarettes, three bags of Bull Durham tobacco, three packs of cigarette paper, and a box of Tuxedo pipe tobacco for use with pipes or cigarettes. Our office gives the fund a kickstart with a $ 50 pledge. The evening edition reports an additional $ 21.75 in donations from readers. One contributor, W. P. Herbert, pledges to give $ 1 a week to keep the troops in tobacco for the duration of the war. “The Red Cross has undertaken to see to the transportation and distribution of the tobacco,” our reporter writes, “This means, of course, that the packages have very opportunity of arriving in France safely, since all Red Cross ships are provided with suitable convoy and are as free from the submarine menace as many be.”
MONTELLOMYSTERY
Bruno Montello remains in serious but stable condition at Troy Hospital, and still refuses to tell police who shot him last Saturday night in the William Street alley.
Investigators have found “no clews” to the identity of Montello’s assailant. Their best chance to crack the case may come whenMontello is released from the hospital, since he has vowed to “get even” with the gunman. Officers who’ve spoken with Montello insist that “he means business.”