100 years ago in The Saratogian
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 1917
Organizers of tonight’s mass meeting at the state armory for the Y.M.C.A. War Work campaign take out a half-page ad in today’s Saratogian to call readers’ attention to the event.
“EVERY MAN AND WOMAN SHOULD BE THERE,” the ad says, “LEARN HOW YOU CAN HELP WIN THE WAR.”
Given how much the event is promoted, it’s surprising to see how little coverage it receives in the following day’s paper. A reporter deals with the meeting in just two paragraphs, one noting that “The need of the Y.M.C.A. war work was presented to an audience,” without saying how big that audience was.
The featured speakers are New York secretary of state Francis M. Hugo and Skidmore School of Arts president Charles H. Keyes. “Both declared that unless the association receives the support of the American people it cannot continue its work in the army camps here and abroad,” the reporter writes, “and both were emphatic in their statement that without the work of the association the morale of the soldiers would be broken.”
Since Keyes has been speaking on the same subject throughout Saratoga County for several days now, an editor may have thought it redundant to repeat virtually the same speech again. The county has a $20,000 goal as part of a $35,000,000 national fundraising effort to support the Y.M.C.A.’s services to American soldiers at training camps in the U.S. and the frontlines in Europe.
Hotel leader
George A. Farnham, the proprietor of Saratoga Springs’ American Hotel, has been elected president of the New York State Hotel Association at its New York City convention, The Saratogian reports.
In the face of growing support for a total ban on alcoholic beverages, the hotel men resolve to take “concerted action to offset prohibition sentiment throughout the country,” a reporter notes, “Temperance, as opposed to prohibition, was indorsed.”
Delegates report that hotels are receiving no backlash from guests for their implementation of “meatless” and “wheatless” days as part of the government’s wartime food-conservation program.
“Speakers who addressed the hotel men declared the public generally is taking the right attitude,” the report continues, “Everyone now understands the patriotic reason for the innovation and it is seldom a complaint is heard.” Russian Revolution “Russia seems to be going to pieces,” an editor writes in The Saratogian’s first comment on last week’s Bolshevik revolution. The writer’s main concern is whether Russia will stay in the war against Germany.
While questioning whether “this little group of ‘Reds’ has authority to commit Russia to anything,” the writer advises Americans to “expect nothing and prepare for the worst.”