100 years ago in The Record

Monday, Feb. 25, 1918

A flagman for the Troy Union Railroad is killed early this morning by a locomotive near Bridge Avenue, The Record reports. The accident takes place around 4 a.m. at Bridge Avenue and Laundry Place, but conductor James Keith and engineer Thomas Taplin of switch engine No. 38, who are hauling five cars, don’t realize what’s happened until they pull into the Troy Union Station and see blood on their wheels and a hat on their pilot. A short time later, another train pulls into the Boston & Maine railyard. Its crew also finds blood on the wheels. Both trains go back the way they came in search of a body. No. 38 finds it first, back on Bridge Avenue, near a battered lantern. The body belongs to Thomas Connelly of Second Street, an individual “well known in the South End.” Declared dead at the scene, his body is taken to an undertaking parlor. No one on No. 38 knows how Connelly was run over.

Save the Sabbath Made the Keynote

The New York State Sabbath Association closes its 28th annual meeting by calling on the state legislature not to legalize movies, baseball or other entertainment on Sundays, The Record reports. The closing session takes place before a “large audi- ence” at Second Presbyterian Church. Speakers at the session declare the Christian Sabbath “vital to the church and nation.”

Rev. Henry C. Minton criticizes the federal government for operating munitions factories on Sundays during the world war. “The war will not be won by omitting the observance of God’s day, God’s book, God’s law,” he says, “We are standing to- day in this awful war for God and for the observance of God’s law and of his day.”

“No man is a Christian unless he regards this Sabbath day observance as vital,” says Rev. G. W. Woodall, “The welfare of the country depends so largely upon the work of the church that the Sabbath must be upheld as necessary to the country’s good work.”

The Sabbath Association pushes back against a movement, allegedly driven by immigrants from continental Europe, to “observe this holy day as a holiday.” Immigrants need to be evangelized and shown the necessity of Sabbath observance, Rev. Robert G. Davey says, or else “conditions here will be as impossible as they have become in Europe.”

Acknowledging the need for recreation for people working six days a week, Rev. H. L. Bowlby says that it’s up to employers to accommodate both their workers and religion by shortening the work week. That way, people will have time for both recreation and worship.

-- Kevin Gilbert