THIS DAY IN 1918 IN THERECORD

Thursday, Feb. 14, 1918. Mayor Cornelius F. Burns wants Trojans to celebrate a patriotic Valentine’s Day by sending friends and loved ones U.S. government thrift stamps instead of the usual romantic greetings, The Record reports. The mayor’s suggestion “was widely accepted by those who always more or less observe the day,” our reporter writes, “It gave a war time touch to the day.” Traditionally, Valentine’s Day was the point at which “the backbone of winter was broken.” Today’s almost spring-like weather gives the reporter hope that that may be true for the harsh winter of 1917-18. “The thought comes to the winter worn mind: Nature gave us the worst winter within our recollection and now will she make some amends by an old-time early Spring?...The winter that has sent the price of snow shovels soaring and emptied the coal bins with such rapidity has certainly been too old fashioned for even the old timers and now for the past day or two there undoubtedly has been a soft spring feel to the air, and look how the snow and ice have melted! “Here’s the wish to the thought that Miss Valentine, aetat 1918, is coquetting as of yore with her old admirer Spring and may his suit be swift and sure.” Spanish War Veterans Twenty years ago tomor- row, in 1898, the U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana harbor, triggering the Spanish-American War. To mark the occasion, Camp Marcus D. Russell of the United Spanish War Veterans holds their “annual patriotic exercises” at the county court house.

Veterans from Albany, Schenectady and elsewhere take part in tonight’s event, which includes speeches in honor of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, whose birthdays are observed as holidays this month.

Troy’s troops never saw action in the Spanish war, going no further than Florida before being sent back home. County Judge Pierce H. Russell hints that 1898 veterans might feel an inferiority complex compared to the Americans now fighting in Europe, but sees no reason for it.

“The fact that the war was short and decisive … does not overshadow or lessen to any degree whatever the great and vital part taken by the American troops on land,” Russell says, “Every man who shouldered a gun and marched forth to fight for the flag of this country at that time is deserving of as much honor and credit as those who bore the scars of battle.”

Rev. J. J. McCarthy tells the veterans that “You have the obligation … to show our boys now going to the front that it is not gain or position which actuates them, but pure love of country.”

-- Kevin Gilbert