100 years ago in The Saratogian

Friday, Nov. 9, 1917

A weeklong investigation by plainclothes state troopers climaxes with a raid on Corinth’s German-American Club that nearly escalates into an armed conflict between troopers and locals.

The issue is not the German-American Club’s loyalty during the American war against Germany, but its alleged violation of Corinth’s no-license policy forbidding the sale of alcoholic beverages. Corinth voters reversed that policy last Tuesday, but the town will stay “dry” until October 1918.

“More than a week ago complaints were made to state troop headquarters that there were several saloons in Corinth running wide open despite the fact that the town had been voted dry,” The Saratogian reports, “Troopers in plain clothes were sent to investigate the places and they reported that the places were wide open as had been reported.”

The troopers tried to throw suspicion off themselves by applying for jobs in the Corinth paper mills, but didn’t fool everybody. Lieutenant Andrew H. Gleason, commanding the Albanybased G Troop, has to abandon his plan for simultaneous raids on seven establishments when he learns that “watchers were on duty at every place except the German-American club.”

Instead, Gleason sends Troopers T. H. Ryan and D. E. Hupman into the club to order drinks. As soon as proprietor John Flinn serves the drinks, Ryan and Hupman arrest him and take him outside.

“The news spread like wildfire through the town and watchers who had been on duty guarding the other saloons in fear of a raid gathered quickly.” Some of the watchers are armed with shotguns, and the situation grows tense as they begin to stalk the troopers. Fortunately, Gleason has reinforced his unit with a “formidable detail” of men from headquarters who deter the watchers from starting trouble.

Flinn is quickly arraigned and freed on $2,000 bail, while the other six places targeted by Gleason promptly close after the raid on the German-American Club. Gleason tells reporters tonight that the club “had been notorious and its closing would be a lesson to the others in the town.” His men boast that Corinth is now “a literally dry town.”

Why no one was watching the German-American Club while the other “wet” establishments were apparently well guarded is unclear from The Saratogian’s report.

What’s happening

Mary Pickford stars in “A Romance of the Redwoods” at the Broadway Theatre tonight, accompanied by the first chapter of the new Vitagraph serial, “The Fighting Trail.” There’s no live vaudeville on the theater’s weekend program.

At the Palace, Florence La Badie stars in “The Man Without A Country,” while Marguerite Fisher stars in “The Devil’s Assistant” at the Lyric.