100 YEARS AGO IN THE SARATOGIAN
Monday, Feb. 25, 1918. Saratogians get their first taste of “Victory Bread” today as a new wartime regulation takes effect across the country.
“All bread sold today by bakers in this city contained twenty per cent. of substitutes for wheat flour,” The Saratogian reports, “Several substitutes are allowed, the most common being barley flour, corn flour, rice flour, potato flour and oat meal.
“The present loaf will be a little heavier and some darker than the regular bread, but it is nourishing and palatable and the bakers say that its use is not a hardship.”
“Wheat is a war food,” county food administrator Leman A. Grippin tells a meeting of the Saratoga Business Men’s Association tonight, “The Allies as well as our soldiers have to be fed to win the war.”
The federal government plans to export between 75,000,000 and 90,000,000 bushels of wheat to Europe between now and August. To make the grain available, the government has asked Americans to go without wheat products entirely for one day each week.
Grippin warns that “The ban has been placed on wheat flour, sugar and poultry and should the war continue for some time there will be other foodstuffs that will be governed by the Food Administration.
“I am well aware that some of the dealers have not followed the rules set by the Administration, through lack of knowledge. I have tried in a friendly way to correct some of these errors made by dealers and have not nor will I try to be too authoritative in the matter.”
However, “Should a dealer insist on disobeying the rules, willfully, it will be my duty to act under orders from the Administration, which I shall not hesitate to do.”
Fired At Assailant; Placed Under Arrest
Thomas Stagliano claims that he was defending himself when he shot at an attacker in Mechanicville this weekend, but he’s the one charged with assault in County Court today. An unidentified assailant slashed Stagliano’s face and was unharmed by his gunfire.
Stagliano is now free on $1,000 bail after Judge Lawrence B. McKelvey halves the amount set by a Mechanicville magistrate.
“A question as to the financial ability of the bondsmen to pay in case the man disappeared was raised by the district attorney,” The Saratogian reports. Charles B. Andrus tells the court that “he did not like to accept as bondsmen Italians who later transfer their property or say that they never had any and did not understand what was wanted of them when they went on the bond.”
Despite Andrus’s reservations, he accepts the bond when the bondsmen prove they own property locally.
-- Kevin Gilbert