100 YEARS AGO IN THE SARATOGIAN
Sunday, March 17, 1918. Saratoga County will send 70 men to Camp Dix in New Jersey at the end of the month as part of an emergency callup of draftees for the national army, The Saratogian reports.
“The men who are to be summoned for service are to fill the emergency quota which is intended to fill gaps in the divisions now training,” a reporter explains, “This will be the first time since the formation of the national army that troops from this section of the state have been sent to Cap Dix.
Saratoga County’s two draft districts have not received official notification of the emergency call-up as of press time for tomorrow’s newspaper, but reports from Albany today appear to be definitive. Troops are scheduled to begin departures for Fort Dix on March 29.
‘Keep The Faith’ St. Patrick Message
At a St. Patrick’s Day service in St. Peter’s Church tonight, Rev. George M. Murray of Troy tells a congregation including the assembled Ancient Order of Hibernians to “Cherish the faith which your forefathers held and kept sacred through great misery and privation.”
Ireland holds a unique place in the history of Christianity, according to Murray. “In all the other countries Christianity has come by stealth and bloodshed,” he says, “but not so with Ireland. On that blessed isle the minds and hearts of the people opened with welcome to the teachings of St. Patrick.”
In other ways, Ireland may be the exemplary Christian nation. “It has been said of the church that she would be persecuted as long as she stood. So it may also be said of the Irish.
“Under the tyrant hands of the English kings they have been unmercifully persecuted. Pages of history are full of the horrors which these kings inflicted on the Irish in order to exterminate their faith. They have robbed and burned their homes, sold their land, killed their children, but they have cherished their faith which was dearer to them than all earthly pomp and glory, yes, even dearer than life itself.”
An English king is now an ally of the United States in the world war against Germany, but Murray doesn’t think that shouldn’t compromise Irish-Americans’ commitment to the war effort.
“The Irish owe much to America,” Murray says, “America has received them with open arms and said, ‘you may build your churches and worship God as you please and you may have a part in the constitution.’”
In return, “The pages of her history show that these Irishmen have served the cause of freedom with great bravery and loyalty.”