100 years ago in The Record

Tuesday, Nov. 6, 1917

Cornelius F. Burns has done what his predecessor, Elias P. Mann, could not. After a bitter reelection campaign, Burns has won a fourth term as mayor of Troy.

The Democrat thwarted Mann’s fourth-term bid in 1911 and was re-elected twice with considerable Republican support. The Record, which normally supports Republican candidates, again endorsed Burns this year.

Republican challenger George T. Morris, the Fourth Ward alderman, accused Burns of reckless spending and an egotistical governing style that alienated the business community. The Record attacked Morris relentlessly, describing the maverick fiscal-conservative, often a minority of one in the common council, of pointless obstructionism.

The candidates have a tense encounter at the Ranken Steamer house when voting begins at 6 a.m. The mayor customarily casts the first vote, but Morris demands that a small group of “laboring men” who arrived earlier vote first so they can “get to work.” He argues with an election inspector until Burns “gracefully waived the courtesy usually extended and allowed the men to vote.”

In the strongest possible rebuke to his opponent, Burns carries the Fourth Ward, which elects a Democratic alderman, William C. O’Leary, to replace Morris. The Democrats retain control of the common council by a 10-7 margin, but Republican C. Arthur Wales is elected council president. Republicans maintain control of the county board of supervisors by a 20-14 margin.

Twenty minutes after the polls close at 5 p.m., a Record messenger with a megaphone informs a “waiting throng” at Fifth and Broadway that the paper has called the election for Burns.

Tomorrow’s paper will report that Burns has a majority of 2,048 votes before absentee ballots cast by hundreds of Troy soldiers are counted. According to informal surveys conducted at Camp Devens in Ayer MA and Camp Wadsworth in Spartansburg SC, Burns will most likely have a large majority of the military vote. Military votes may decide the race for comptroller, where Republican Frank H. Miller, backed by organized labor, claims victory by a narrow margin over incumbent William H. Dennin.

“I knew right along I would win,” Burns tells supporters, “The representative men of both parties were with me and the decent people always prevail.

“I don’t need to tell the people I appreciate their votes. I shall demonstrate it by bucking in and taking care of their interests as best I can.”

While historic, Burns’s victory proves a footnote to the real history made today. By a margin of approximately 90,000 votes according to tomorrow’s paper, the men of New York State approve a referendum granting the women of the state the right to vote.