100 years ago in The Record
Monday, Sept. 9, 1918
“We have now at the institute a unit of the student army,” RPI president Palmer C. Ricketts announces today as the Troy school launches an officer-training program. “The Rensselaer Polytechnic institute as a part of the government’s great military program has been an established fact,” The Record reports, “There has been more or less talk about the great engineering school’s association with the great war game, but the talk has been mainly of what might happen. Now it can be said positively that the institute is working on a government military plan.” “On and after Oct. 1 all students 18 years of age and over will be inducted into the army of the United States, if they wish to be,” Ricketts says, “and those who do not wish to be inducted will probably be sent to military cantonments as private soldiers.” Full details of the “general military course” are yet to be announced, but as of October 1 the government will pay the tuition, room and board of students who take part. As privates, they will live in dorms converted into barracks, or in the gymnasium. The focus of their studies will remain on engineering, but “what the courses will be will depend upon the government’s need. “If the government needs certain classes of engineers the students may be either given special preparation here, or sent elsewhere to get it,” our reporter writes.
“All the energies and faculties of the institute are now to be subordinated to the needs of the government, the call of the army to be first and promptly heeded,” Ricketts says.
Students under 18 have the option of training with the student army, but will have to pay their own way.
No Fire Parade This Year
One of Troy’s annual traditions has become a casualty of the world war. Mayor Cornelius F. Burns announces today that there will be no parade and inspection of the city’s firemen in 1918.
The mayor indicates that pay raises for firemen, policemen, teachers and other city employees are straining the city budget. The situation will only be made worse when Troy’s breweries shut down operations for the duration, by government order, on December 1. That will cause “a big loss of revenue to the city,” Burns says, just as Troy must pay an additional $100,000 in salaries.
As an alternative to the firemen’s parade, the mayor plans to make a “personal visit” to every house in Troy. Public safety commissioner John F. Cahill and fire chief Cornelius Casey will accompany the mayor on his tour on a date to be announced.