This day in The Record in 1916
Wednesday, Feb. 9, 1916
Mayor Cornelius F. Burns is calling on department heads in the Troy city government to cut their budgets for the year in the face of $48,000 in unanticipated expenses, The Record reports.
The extra expense is equivalent in purchasing power to just over $1,000,000 in 21st century money. The extra expenses include a $5,000 appropriation for the upcoming Troy Centennial celebration, $2,000 for the Troy Public Library and $5,500 in additional lighting costs.
To make up for the extra expenses, the mayor calls for a hiring freeze in the police department. Teachers, firefighters and employees of the water departments shouldn’t expect raises this year.
“The mayor said he wanted to impress upon the departments the necessity of keeping down any and all expenditures possible,” our reporter notes, “He said he wanted this year, above all other times, to give the people a lower tax rate.”
There won’t be any infrastructure improvements in 1916 unless absolutely necessary, Burns insists. “The people have had many improvements,” he says, and they’re still paying for them as different bond issues come due each year.
MASONS’ CENTENNIAL GIFT. To mark the 100th anniversary of Apollo Chapter No. 48, Royal Arch Masons, the lodge donates a $1,000 interest-bearing bond to the Troy Orphan Asylum.
Marshall F. Hemmingway makes the presentation to Orphan Asylum president Hobart W. Thompson during a centennial banquet at Harmony Hall tonight. The Apollo Chapter’s Fruit Fund will be dedicated to purchasing fruit for the orphans “to nourish them back to health when they are ill, to bring them happiness when they are well and to establish some material memorial in commemoration of a prosperous existence of one hundred years.”
“This will be guarded as sacred,” Thompson tells the Masons, “It is a fund which we have long hoped to be able to secure and now that we have it through your charitableness and generosity, we are delighted beyond expression.”
Earlier today, the Masonic Temple welcomes officials of the Grand Chapter, including Most Eminent Grand High Priest Jared A. Reed, who speaks on “Masonry, Past, Present and Future.”
“Masonry during the past one hundred years has had much to do with the progress the world has made,” Reed tells the Troy Masons. He expects Masonry to play a similar role over the next century.
“The time is coming when Masons of this country shall have a duty to perform for our brothers over the sea who are now fighting under all flags on the blood- drenched fields of war-mad Europe. Remember that there is no such thing as a foreign Mason. We are all brothers.”