Sunday, Nov. 11, 1917

Turnout at a Y.M.C.A. fundraising rally at Ballston Spa Baptist Church is “somewhat disappointing,” The Saratogian reports, but “what the audience lacked in numbers was made up by the generous response for contributions.”

The meeting raises $1,140 for the Y.M.C.A. war fund as part of a weeklong national fundraising campaign. Saratoga County has a fundraising goal of $20,000 toward the nationwide $35,000,000 goal. The war fund will help the Y provide services to American soldiers at home and in Europe during the war against Germany.

Skidmore School of Arts president Charles Keyes “spoke in an earnest and impressive manner of the fundamental things at stake in this war, of the great brutality which is displayed by the Germans, who violate every sense of decency and humanity,” a Ballston Spa correspondent writes.

“He said that war was to bring a decision on two diametrically opposed forms of government. The allies, England, France, Belgium, Italy and this country deny the divine right of kings and believe in a government responsible to the people, while opposed are the forces that uphold the divine right of kings and government of the people from above.”

While the U.S. and France are democratic republics, England, Belgium and Italy are constitutional monarchies. Another ally, Russia, was an absolute monarchy until a revolution earlier this year. A second revolution last week replaced the provisional government with a Bolshevik regime that intends to take Russia out of the war.

“This war must be won by America and her Allies or all that Christianity stands for will be banished from the earth,” Keyes continues, “This war must be won speedily or we will pay a cost that will be stupendous to contemplate.”

The Y.M.C.A.’s role is to “bring back the boys clean of body, mind and soul,” Keyes explains. Saratoga Springs Y.M.C.A. secretary John H. Irons “held the intense attention of the audience with his graphic descriptions of the work in the trenches, bringing tears to the eyes of many in the audience.”

On the front lines in France and Belgium Y.M.C.A. volunteers are often “the last one to give help, if only a cup of hot coffee, to the men when they went over the top,” Irons says. More than 1,000 Y.M.C.A. “huts” already service British soldiers in the trenches, Irons explains. As “the only organization that had kept up the international character of its work,” the Y also provides services to allied soldiers in German P.O.W. camps.

Irons and Keyes also speak in Mechanicville, which has been assigned a $6,000 quota toward the county goal. — Kevin Gilbert