100 years ago in The Record
Thursday, Sept. 6, 1917
The federal government will spend more than $ 5,000,000 to upgrade the Watervliet Arsenal gun plant, putting thousands of additional people to work at the facility, The Record reports. Arsenal commandant Col. William M. Gibson, who has just returned from Washington D. C., tells reporters that the War Department authorized the appropriation last week. “The enlargement of the plant will naturally mean better progress in ordinance manufacture and will undoubtedly make the Watervliet arsenal compare in importance with the best in the world,” our reporter writes. “Hundreds of workmen will be engaged on two new buildings for which plans have been perfected, and upon which the work will be pushed as fast as men and materials can be secured. Every possible facility will be introduced for the rapid construction of the new shops. “The latest and best equipment in gun manufacture known will be secured for the new shops, some of the machines ordered costing several hundred thousand dollars, ranging from immense boring and planning machines down to the machines used in turning out small parts.” The Arsenal definitely can use more men, but finding them is another matter. Since the U. S. declaration of war on Germany, Gibson has “found some trouble in getting men enough for the work in hand.” Now, “a new call for several thousand mechanics … will create an unusual condition that will require some time to solve.”
Gibson tells our writer that “a better opportunity for skilled mechanics and clerks, especially men between the ages of 21 to 35, never before presented itself.”
RECORD TOBACCO FUND
Mayor Cornelius F. Burns contributes $ 25 toward the Record Tobacco Fund to provide cigarettes or cigarette makings to local soldiers bound for Europe.
“It affords me great pleasure to be able to aid any movement which has for its object the alleviation of suffering among, or promotion of the comfort of, the men actively engaged in the worldwide struggle against militarism,” Burns writes today.
The mayor’s contribution is equivalent in buying power to approximately $ 460 in 2017 money. The Troy common council is taking unofficial action to raise additional money for the tobacco fund. While the aldermen are barred from explicitly endorsing any fundraising campaign, Eighth Ward Democrat James F. Malone believes that his colleagues should “take notice of the matter” in some way.
At Malone’s suggestion, council president Albert J. Watson appoints a committee of aldermen to encourage local movie theaters and other entertainment venues to designate September 16 as “Soldiers’ Tobacco War Fund Night” by donating portions of that day’s ticket sales to the Record fund.