100 years ago in the Saratogian
Tuesday, July 2, 1918
“It looks as if Saratoga Springs automobilists contemplating a Sunday trip hereafter will have to fill their gasoline tanks Saturday night, or they will not go very far,” The Saratogian reports.
The National Automobile Dealers’ Association is meeting in New York City today. While local dealers haven’t heard anything definite from delegates, early indications are that dealers will cut back their hours of operation as a wartime fuel-saving measure.
“The dealers are now pledged to eliminate all night and Sunday repairs and services,” according to association president F. W. A. Vesper, “and gasoline must not be sold on Sundays.
“Every service station must be closed at 6 o’clock every night, including Saturday nights, and remain closed until Monday morning. Any car owner who wishes to drive on Sunday must make the machine ready, even to filling with gas, oil and water, the Saturday preceding.
“This means that pleasure riders may travel as far as a tank of gasoline will take them and no more unless they carry extra fuel in cans and fill their tanks on the roads.”
A Glens Falls dealer sees no hardship for local drivers, since they’ll be able to travel between 150 and 200 miles on Sundays if they fill up on Saturday afternoon.
Men in Camp Read to ‘Lick the Kaiser’
Saratoga Springs hosts the annual convention of the American Library Association this week. Today’s session is dedicated to the ALA’s wartime work.
Many of Saratoga County’s draftees receive basic training at Camp Devens in Ayer MA. John A. Lowe, the Camp Devens librarian, tells delegates that a camp library is a new experience for soldiers and librarians alike.
“The work done is in a man’s library for men living under vastly different circumstances from those of his civilian community,” Lowe explains, “The aim is to furnish through printed matter, recreation, education, and inspiration for officers and men. This will have a vitalizing effect upon the librarians and their own libraries, as it develops personal resources for reaching men.
“The service of the library helps to maintain the morale of the army. It teaches the library habit to many men who have never used a library before, and it develops many book lovers.”
While books of every sort are available, Library War Service director Carl H. Milam says that titles of practical wartime value are the most popular.
“Two hundred and fifty books on trigonometry are in continuous circulation in one naval camp,” Milam notes, because sailors are “anxious to understand the trigonometry involved in pointing the big guns that will hurl Kaiser killing shells into German strongholds.”