100 years ago in The Saratogian
Monday, Aug. 27, 1917
The 111th U.S. Infantry regiment, including Company L of Saratoga County, heads downstate today for the first leg of its expected journey to Europe and the frontlines of the world war.
The former Second New York breaks camp in South Saratoga at 7 a.m., following a “gala day” of final visits from friends and family yesterday. Company L boards the third of four trains taking the regiment to Bartow, described by The Saratogian as “a village on the New York side of Long Island Sound.” From there the 111th is expected to report for regular army training in Spartansburg SC before crossing the Atlantic.
“There seemed to be a feeling among officers of the regiment that it would not be long before they will be ordered to France, perhaps a question of weeks, rather than months,” one reporter writes.
“The eventual destination of the regiment is unknown, but there is a strong feeling in military circles that if transportation can be provided, the regiment will never go to a southern camp, but will be sent directly to France,” another notes.
Back in Saratoga Springs, the county’s first draft district finally meets its goal of 158 men for a new army after 76 out of 96 men pass their physicals today.
Today’s total puts the district over the top even with the 26 men claiming exemptions factored in. Before today, 117 men had been accepted into the ranks from the cohort selected in the July 20 draft lottery.
PEOPLE’S FORUM
The use of tobacco as a morale booster for soldiers comes under heavy criticism today from Rev. F. B. Blodgett of Greenfield Center.
Blodgett responds to an August 24 editorial claiming that “the tobacco sent to the front will not only serve a humane purpose, but will contribute to victory.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Blodgett writes, “I am of the opinion that it is high time for progressive newspaper editorial writers to awake out of sleep…. How the writer of this editorial could by any stretch find [tobacco] a contributing factor to victory is beyond my comprehension. The facts so far as I can find them are all very emphatically set in the opposite direction.”
Tobacco’s health risks are well known. Blodgett notes that “the first great cause of rejection as ‘physically unfit’ in the men now under examination is ‘tobacco heart’ and impaired vision due to the excessive use of tobacco.”
In Blodgett’s own experience, “The last two men I buried I said to them, ‘Quit your tobacco or you will die.’ I buried them both of tobacco heart within six months.”