100 years ago in The Saratogian
Sunday, Nov. 10, 1918. “You feel and I feel that the end is near; that victory is perched on our banner and the boys have accomplished the work for which they have gone over there,” an Albany speaker tells a Ballston Spa war fund rally tonight.
However, “the end of the war is the beginning of the hardest work” for the organizations funded by the United War Work campaign, including the Y.M.C.A., the Knights of Columbus and the Jewish Welfare Board.
The end of the world war is expected any day now. A premature report that Germany had signed an armistice agreement led to mass celebrations throughout Saratoga County on November 7. While the Germans had not yet signed the armistice then, they will most likely accept the terms offered by Allied forces.
Bertram Aufsessor of Albany predicts that “with the release of the soldier from strict military restraint, the frequent furlough, will come the need of supplying him with something to apply his excess of spirits. How much would you be willing to give to see that boy from your home, or one that you know, come back home a credit to himself and to his family and community; clean,manly, pure?
“That is the measure of your duty now. Wonderful as the work is that has been done for them, yet more wonderful is the work that must be done if our boys are to come back as we would have them come.”
A veteran who survived a gas attack gives “perhaps the strongest appeal that has ever been made to a Ballston Spa audience by any speaker in any campaign.” Known only as Master Gunner Benson, his appeal lies “Not in what he said, for he had very little to say, but his appearance.
“Ghastly from the effects of gas, his nerves shattered from shell shock, he was a living appeal to all to give for the boys ‘over there’ who are going through the horrors of this war, thousands of them being left in the condition that the Master Gunner Benson is now.”
“I sometimes forget, it’s the gas,” Benson says while telling his story.
Elsewhere in the village, the Italian-American community celebrates its mother country’s victory over Austria with a parade and fireworks display. Austria-Hungary dropped out of the war last week.
“Italians have good cause to feel proud of their country,” The Saratogian reports, “and Ballston Spa has also reason to be proud of its Italian population for their patriotism and the enthusiasm with which they have entered into any demonstration during the time that this country has been at war.”