100 YEARS AGO IN THE SARATOGIAN

Thursday, March 14, 1918. Women in Saratoga County will get their first chance to exercise their new right to vote in next Tuesday’s village elections, The Saratogian reports.

Citizens in Ballston Spa, Corinth, Galway, Schuylerville, South Glens Falls, Victory Mills and Waterford will go to the polls on March 19. State attorney general Merton E. Lewis removes any doubt about women’s eligibility to vote in an opinion published today.

Asked whether women were qualified to vote in village elections, Lewis notes that it isn’t necessary to register to vote in such elections unless the village makes a rule requiring registration. If any local villages require registration, women can vote if they registered before a March 9 deadline. Otherwise, women will be able to vote on the 19th without having to register, so long as they meet the same qualifications required of male voters.

Women in New York State received the right to vote through a referendum approved by the state’s male voters last November.

Don’t Get Political Ideas Haphazard

In another lecture in his series at Saratoga Springs High School, Union College professor Charles N. Waldron advises women and voters in general to “Get the opinion of a number of people before you form an opinion on political matters.”

Waldron advises voters to trust official sources rather than rumors or friends claiming to have “inside dope” on local politics. He recommends getting more than one news source, since “the condition under which newspapers are written is an incentive to superficiality.” Writing on deadline to “give the people what they want” doesn’t often result in serious commentary, Waldron warns, especially when “newspapers take a stand favoring some party.” Then, “you will find that their articles usually favor the party which the paper favors.”

Wildcat Killed by ‘Sammy’ Davis

Local hunter ‘Sammy’ Davis believes that he has killed the wildcat that has taken pigs and other small animals from local farms in recent months, The Saratogian reports.

Davis and his son John are fox hunting near Quaker Springs when their dogs “setup a great holler,” Davis tells a reporter. The animals lead him to a tree halfway up a hill where Davis finds cat tracks.

Just as Davis is about to head down the hill, “I heard a growl and a streak of fur bolted from the tree and landed in the snow just a little ways from where John and I were standing. I up with my gun and let go and this is the fellow we got.”

Davis brings his prize to the Saratogian office tomorrow morning before putting it on display in a Broadway shop window.