THIS DAY IN 1918 IN THERECORD

Thursday, April 18, 1918. Troy is closing fast on its Third Liberty Loan quota, The Record reports, and organizers expect the city to cross the $3,600,000 threshold by the end of the week. As this evening’s edition goes to press, an unofficial estimate credits the Collar City with $2,950,000 in Liberty Bond sales, including a $500,000 purchase today by Troy Savings Bank. The U.S. government is financing its war against Germany partly through the sale of Liberty Bonds, which can be redeemed with interest after the war is over. Every community that meets its Liberty Loan quota will receive an honor flag, but “It is not alone necessary that the city secure its honor flag, but it should be a matter of patriotic pride that the flag contain a star showing that the quota had been doubled.” A bond rally at Proctor’s Theater features one of America’s first flying aces. Joseph C. Stehlin is a lieutenant in the French Lafayette Escadrille, volunteering after working his way across the Atlantic in a cattle boat before the U.S. declared war. At age 21, he’s credited with shooting down six German planes. Stehlin arrives late and “to the regret of the audience his address was necessarily short. Clad in the attractive uniform, which incidentally he termed gaudy, Lieutenant Stehlin made an impression on his entrance on the stage which caused the whole house to applaud.

“It was significant that throughout his entire talk he made no mention of his experience on the front; that is, of his exploits. The audience knew, however, that he had brought down six German airplanes, but of this he said nothing.”

Instead, even though “it was not the soldier’s place to beg for the people at home to help him,” Stehlin tells the crowd that “they have not the remotest idea of the suffering of the soldiers.

“Do you want your boy to have to turn his undershirt inside out to get a few moments of comfort, as I had to do?” the ace asks, “My underclothing was so filled with lice and dirt and vermin that I had to turn it inside out to get a few minutes’ comfort.”

Civilians often have it far worse. “The stories one reads in the papers about the awful barbarity of the German are absolutely true,” Stehlin says, recounting a mother’s story of how the Huns “ran a bayonet through each of her little children and pinned them to the wall.”

Stehlin warns the Proctor’s audience that “Germany at the present moment is winning the war,” but assures them that in the end, “the allies will win.”

-- Kevin Gilbert