100 years ago in The Saratogian

Thursday, Sept. 19, 1918. After a nearly two-month reprieve, Saratoga Springs will have to observe “lightless nights” Monday through Thursday starting next week, The Saratogian reports.

As a wartime fuel-saving measure, the federal government has ordered outdoor lights (except for building entrances) shut off four nights a week. County fuel administrator Clarence B. Kilmer suspended the rule during the Saratoga racing season on public-safety grounds, citing “the extra necessity for police protection.” He announces today that “the necessity for window display lights and other out-door lighting … is passed.”

Wartime rules will take effect on Monday, September 23. From that day forward, “To have window display lighting and other out-door lighting, other than above specified, is a violation of the Lever Act and makes the violator subject to severe penalty.” The police are under orders to report all violations to Kilmer.

A trickier question is when it’ll be legal to use fuel to start heating fires. In the absence of clear guidance from the federal government, and in response to numerous inquiries, Kilmer tells The Saratogian that as far as he’s concerned, it should be perfectly legal to start such fires right now.

“It seems to me that to fix such a date in a climate such as we have in Saratoga county would be welcoming an epidemic of pulmonary diseases,” the fuel administrator says, “We have already had several frosts and much rainy weather, making it necessary to start many furnace fires.

“I thoroughly agree with the [federal] Fuel Administration in all reasonable economical orders but where such orders would endanger public health and welfare I am positively opposed to such order.”