100 years ago in The Saratogian
Saturday, Sept. 1, 1917
Earlier this week, a friend warned Edgar T. Brackett that a Mrs. Jacobs of Albany was threatening to come to Saratoga Springs and attack the former state senator. Brackett doesn’t take the warning seriously until Jacobs confronts him outside the Adirondack Trust Company this morning.
“I was halted by a woman who inquired if I knew who she was,” Brackett tells The Saratogian, “I told her no.”
Brackett remembers the warning when the woman identifies herself as Mrs. Jacobs, and then he has to think and act fast.
“She drew a whip and attempted to strike me with it, but I took it away from her,” Brackett says, “She then slightly scratched me in the face.”
Finally overpowering Jacobs, Brackett takes her to the police station, but refuses to swear out a warrant against her. “She talked in a rambling fashion,” he recalls, “I thought she should be under observation as to her sanity.”
Brackett remembers more about Clare Jacobs now. She’s the widow of Henry R. Jacobs, an Albany theatrical man who once asked Brackett to represent him in a lawsuit.
“Several years ago she and her husband came to my office with a matter which they claimed was not being well handled by an attorney in Albany,” the former senator explains, “The matter was looked into and there were some proceedings in court but there was no substance to her case, and they expressing dissatisfaction with my conclusions, as they had with the conclusions of the previous attorney, the matter was turned over to still another.”
The Jacobs’ suit eventually was “entirely defeated.” Investigators suspect that Clare Jacobs blames Brackett for the failure of the suit. She remains under observation at police headquarters as tonight’s paper goes to press.
LAWYERS MOVE TO PROTECT FLAG
Later tonight, Brackett hosts a dinner at the United States Hotel for delegates to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, which has been meeting in Saratoga Springs this week.
Today’s session in the Appellate Division courthouse in City Hall is devoted mainly to drafting legislation making it a misdemeanor to use the U.S. flag for commercial purposes.
State flags would also be protected under the proposed legislation. Among the practices that would be banned are “Placing any advertisement on such emblems, offering for sale any article to which is attached any such flag [and] casting contempt on the flag by word or action.”
If approved, the draft will be sent to the 48 state legislatures for consideration. Conference secretary George B. Young says this meeting is “the most successful in the history of the organization.”