100 years ago in The Record
Friday, Sept. 27, 1918. The federal government notifies parents of American soldiers when their sons are killed, wounded or missing in action in Europe. In some cases, informal lines of communication convey the information quicker than the government can. The Record reports today that letters sent between September 1 and September 8 by soldiers in Company A of the 105th U.S. Infantry regiment, the former Second New York National Guard, indicate that Sergeant Stanley Beattie was killed in action sometime last month. In the most detailed eyewitness account, Myron Fales wrote that “he and Stanley Beattie were together at an observation post in France when a shell struck the young soldier in the head and killed him.” Fales’ story is corroborated by Harry McCarthy and Henry Nims. The sergeant’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. David L. Beattie, have not yet received official notification of their son’s death. Born in October 1897, Beattie dropped out of Troy High to join the Second New York on border patrol duty in Texas in 1916. He was promoted to sergeant while the regiment received trench warfare training at Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina, last year. “All Troy mourns with Mr. and Mrs. Beattie,” our reporter writes, “but all feel pride in the fact that this young soldier has paid the supreme sacrifice in our noble cause.”
No Quarter will be Shown Lawbreakers
In a dramatic scene today, “with the doors open and no attempt at secrecy,” Rensselaer County district attorney John P. Taylor warns a Troy property owner that “There has never any fixing of matters with me and there never will be.”
Taylor’s unidentified visitor is one of four property owners whose tenants were convicted recently of operating “disorderly houses,” i.e. houses of prostitution. Earlier this week, Taylor notified the property owners that he would prosecute them if their buildings continued to be used for immoral purposes.
All the property owner asks, by our account, is, “if it were really true that he would have to get rid of tenants.” In response, Taylor tells him that “If any one has told you that this matter can be fixed with me, go back and tell him, or them, that there is no power or pull that can influence me in the discharge of my duty.
“I know you and know those you think can protect you. You are deliberately unpatriotic for immoral purposes which destroy the men called into the service of their country as soldiers….I regard the property owner who knowingly rents his premises for immoral purposes as even a worse enemy of the community than the person who runs the house.”