Wednesday, Dec. 19, 1917
Saratoga Springs’s political and business leaders are urgently lobbying the federal government to make it possible for local draftees to come home for Christmas from their training facility in Ayer MA.
Soldiers in the 303rd U.S. Infantry regiment are outraged by a federal War Department order last night that drastically reduced the number of men eligible for holiday furloughs next week from 80% of regimental strength to only 5%. The new directive, adopted to prevent railroad congestion, means that no more than fourteen men from Saratoga County will be allowed to go home, presuming that they can secure transportation.
The local troops, who expect to see combat duty in Europe next year, protest the decision in a telegram sent to The Saratogian and Saratoga Springs mayor Walter P. Butler under the signature, “THE BOYS FROM HOME.”
“Can you not use your influence to increase the number of men who can go?” the telegram asks, “This will undoubtedly be the last time we will have an opportunity of visiting our homes. Some of us will never see them again.”
After receiving the telegram, Mayor Butler contacts Mayor Cornelius F. Burns of Troy, the president of the New York Conference of Mayors. Burns tells him that he has spoken personally with Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, but that Baker only told him what he’s told the general public. The secretary “feared the congestion caused on the various railroads by the transportation of large numbers of men at this time would greatly interfere with other important war work.”
Meanwhile, Business Men’s Association president Thomas Kneil sends telegrams to Saratoga County’s representatives in Congress, asking “Can you do anything with Secretary Baker in this matter?”
An Ayer correspondent reports that “Gloom overcasts all barracks today. The majority of the boys had, in advance, made plan for the four days’ leave which was promised and all these plans have been knocked into a cocked hat.”
In assigning the precious handful of furloughs available, officers will give priority to “the boys who have not pestered them with requests for week-end leaves” to date. “There are some boys in camp who have not been outside the jurisdiction of the officers since coming here and in some instances this dates as far back as October.”
As for the rest, the reporters have an idea. “Hundreds of boys are in a position to go to their homes by automobiles. If the auto is pressed into service, relieving the railroad of any strain, the boys fortunate enough to have relatives or friends with machines may be allowed to go home.”