100 years ago in The Record
Tuesday, Sept. 18, 1917
The city of Troy finds it “virtually impossible” to complete this summer’s street improvement projects due to the federal government’s wartime demand for war workers, The Record reports. Public works commissioner Charles F. Crowley tells the Board of Contract and Supply that he’s received “a number of telephone inquiries” about the progress of stalled projects. He explains that “It has been with the great difficulty that laborers engaged in this work have been kept intact, because government work pays much better for labor than the city can afford.” The problem isn’t unique to Troy. As president of the state conference of mayors, Troy mayor Cornelius F. Burns has “received similar reports from several other cities, some of which had begun larger improvements and were forced to halt them because the scarcity of labor tied them up.” Burns tells Crowley to “continue the work as well as he can,” noting that “Fortunately, Troy has undertaken but few contracts this year and they have been completed or are progressing satisfactorily.” The mayor adds that “no man who wanted to work need go looking for a job these days, and further than that, even unskilled labor brings good compensation.”
Pulse of the people
The Record recently endorsed Burns for a fourth two- year term, even though Burns is a Democrat and our paper normally leans Republican. The endorsement angered one reader whose letter appears today under the signature “Qui Qui Suum.”
“The tone of your paper is for democracy, but you are trying to sidestep our local issues and start to create imperialism at home,” the writer protests.
“The people of Troy or any other city do not want a king or any other kind of a royal subject, so just take a drop and help keep our country a democratic republic. No life election for any one man or set of men. It seems to me that the present city officials have had pickings enough for the last six years, and as the office for mayor is an honor for a man, why not let some other citizen have some honor?”
Burns will face Fourth Ward alderman George T. Morris in the November general election. Morris is running unopposed in tomorrow’s Republican primary, but some Republicans want to cast protest votes against the maverick fiscal conservative.
“Uncertain” wants to cast a write- in vote for County Attorney Herbert F. Roy but wants to know how to do so correctly. Anthony P. Finder advises the writer simply to write Roy’s name on the blank line, and warns that “any further mark might invalidate the ballot.”