100 years ago in The Record

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 1917

Republican mayoral candidate George T. Morris opened the fall campaign last weekend with an unprecedented attack on The Record. Today, our paper replies in kind. The Record has been a Republican newspaper since its founding, but usually represents dissident factions within the local GOP. On multiple occasions, however, it has endorsed the current Democratic mayor, Cornelius F. Burns. Morris calls The Record “the only Democratic daily newspaper published in this city” and claims not to be neither surprised nor intimidated by its support for Burns. “Let no citizen think that I fear the calumnies or ridicule of this hypocritical sheet of that its attacks will change my course of action or my plan of campaign one iota,” Morris writes, “Year after year this newspaper, posing as a Republican organ, has pursued a policy of fomenting discord and discontent in the Republican ranks and has openly and continuously supported Democratic candidates.” Morris himself was endorsed only with great reluctance by GOP leaders, after the maverick fiscal- conservative Fourth Ward alderman scared away all rivals by declaring his candidacy early. Morris is often a minority of one in the common council, nut no Republican was willing to spend the money necessary to wage a successful primary campaign against him. Our editorial writer doesn’t quote directly from Morris’s attacks. “He attacks the Troy Record with a series of assertions wholly at variance with the facts because The Record will not knuckle down to his startling programs of vagaries and vacuity,” he summarizes. The editorial is just getting started. “But what of Mr. Morris itself?” it asks, “Platforms, if they are to support a candidate during a municipal campaign, must be erected on something better than bluster, batter and balderdash. “But Mr. Morris has no definite program except in his announcement that he will remove Superintendent Diven [ of the water works]. His is a platform of platitudes … according to the rules laid down in the standard ‘ candidates’ complete letter- writer and guide to campaigning.’ “By what right does Mr. Morris condemn those who are trying to lift Troy to higher political and industrial levels? In what public movement has he ever played a leading part? In what civic effort ha he played any role whatsoever?... Mr. Morris’s name in all these endeavors was conspicuous by its absence until he found his sawdust ring in the Common Council chamber too small for his various turns.” Morris “is known only for the riots he can create in the Common Council chamber,” while “any well- balanced citizen,” the writer claims, will join The Record in saying “Safety First! Re- Elect Mayor Burns!”