100 years ago in The Record
Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1919
Troy mayor Cornelius F. Burns informs attendees at tonight’s meeting of the planning committee for the city’s reception for returning soldiers that the Troy-based 105th U.S. Infantry regiment left France earlier today. The mayor gets the word from Lieutenant Colonel J. Leslie Kincaid of the advance group of officers of the 27th Division, to which the 105th regiment belongs. Kincaid receives word in Syracuse that the troops have set sail on board the steamship Leviathan. “If the Leviathan makes the time expected, the regiment should reach New York harbor in just eight days, as it is considered an ‘eight- day ship,’” The Record reports. The news inspires the tentative adoption of a $20,000 budget for the celebration. That includes $3,500 to transport the regiment’s Troy companies, as well as one Cohoes company, from New York to the Collar City. Organizers hope to bring the troops home by boat, but if negotiations with Hudson Navigation fall through the companies will travel by train. $500 has been set aside to hire “four or more” marching bands for the welcome-home parade. At the same time, “it was decided to allow places in the parade to be held on the day the troops reach the city only to those organizations which appear in military or naval uniforms, and the mayor’s welcoming committee.
“This was taken to mean only troops at the Watervliet arsenal, the New York state guard and all soldiers and sailors in the city at the time.”
The decision most likely aborts plans by “many organizations which could not by any possibility be taken as coming under the head of military or naval uniformed bodies” that had “already taken steps for their own participation in the parade.” According to the mayor, officers of the 27th division are “greatly opposed to a large parade or one over a long route of march.”
Evers Favors Ball Club in Troy
Local baseball legend Johnny Evers is going to New York to meet with International League president Dave Fultz about the possible addition of a Troy team to the minor-league organization.
Evers tells Record sportswriter Martin “Marty Mack Dee” McDonough that “I am not going to say that I am over cheerful about that proposition….[Fultz] might convince me of the value of an International league team in Troy. But I hardly think he will be able to do so.”
Instead, Evers would rather start a new league representing the Hudson Valley, including Troy. If the state legislature votes to legalize Sunday baseball, “there isn’t any doubt in my mind about the formation of a league here.”