100 years ago in The Saratogian
Saturday, Oct. 19, 1918. Troy city health officer Dr. Melville D. Dickinson tells reporters that the Collar City has suffered “only about 100 deaths” out of an estimated 3,000 cases of socalled Spanish flu during this fall’s epidemic.
“It may truthfully be said that the percentage of deaths from influenza in Troy is much smaller than in other places, a result due in great measure to the efficient and tireless service of physicians and nurses and co-operation on the part of the public in observance in health regulations,” Dickinson says tonight.
“While many deaths have occurred during the week it should not be thought that a great percentage is due directly to influenza….Many deaths while apparently due to influenza were in fact only coincident, the victims having been ill in more or less serious form before the influenza attacked them.”
Dickinson believes that Troy has reached a “turning point,” and that the epidemic “may be said to be on the decline.” He’s taking no chances, however, and announces that “restrictions heretofore placed [will] be continued for the present.”
The city’s schools, theaters and social halls remain closed. While the churches haven’t been shut down completely, as in other places, they’re limited to one Sunday morning service and Sunday School classes have been cancelled during the epidemic. Over the Top After two days of frantic fundraising, Troy Liberty Loan director Frank E. Norton announces tonight that the city has surpassed its $7,334,000 quota of Liberty Bond sales.
“The program arranged for the last evening of the drive was a ‘corker,’” The Record reports, “and one of the largest throngs ever seen in the streets of Troy gathered to see what had been prepared for their entertainment.”
Movies are projected on the wall of the Troy Times building on River Street, while the fifty-member Musicians’ Union Band plays in the streets. Featured speakers at the open-air Liberty Theater include stage star Harold Ford and former state assemblyman and Longshoremen’s Union president Richard Butler.
By the time the band performs at the Liberty, the downtown crowd is so dense that “it was impossible for a pedestrian to get from Third to Second street on Broadway.”
Meanwhile, the purchase of a $500 Liberty Bond gives grocer Sidney Nathan the privilege of pushing an effigy of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German monarch into the Hudson River. The effigy slowly made its way from Hoosick Street to the Congress Street bridge during the campaign, moving one foot for every $50 worth of bonds sold.
Due to a “flood of subscriptions” (i.e. pledges) today, final numbers for the Collar City won’t be known until next week.