100 years ago in The Record

Sunday, April 8, 1917

The U.S. is at war this weekend, but public opinion is not united behind the war effort. A Mechanicville man is fighting for his life at Troy Hospital today after an argument over the war escalates into violence. Michael Haggerty is being treated for a gunshot wound to the abdomen, while his assailant, former Mechanicville policeman Dennison Nolan is being held without bail in the Mechanicville jail. The trouble began last night at Lynch’s saloon on Saratoga Avenue. The Record reports that Haggerty and Nolan got into an argument about the war “in which Haggerty took sides with Germany.” The U.S. declared war on Germany on April 6, following overwhelming votes in both houses of Congress. The federal government broke off diplomatic relations with Germany in February over the Germans’ resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against merchant ships bound for France and Great Britain. Despite nearly unanimous criticism of Germany in the press, some Americans don’t look forward to their country taking the side of Great Britain in the war that’s been raging since the summer of 1914. Mr. Lynch, the saloon proprietor, threw both men out when their argument grew too noisy. He found Haggerty “fearful to go on the street unaccompanied.” After closing his saloon, Lynch decided to escort Haggerty home. In the meantime, Nolan went home to get a gun.

Nolan confronts Haggerty and Lynch on Round Lake Avenue, a short distance from Haggerty’s home. “The argument about the war was renewed,” our reporter writes, “and during its height, Nolan, according to Lynch, pulled a revolver from his inside coat pocket and shot Haggerty in the abdomen.”

Lynch rushes Haggerty home and calls a doctor. The doctor calls an ambulance to take Haggerty to Troy Hospital.

“Nolan made no attempt to get away, but gave himself up to the police when he found out they were looking for him,” our writer notes.

EASTER SUNDAY

Two days after war was declared on Good Friday, “Blue sky, bright sunshine, a keen bracing wind and clean streets over which waved countless American flags formed the background to Troy’s Easter landscape.”

During the traditional parade of spring fashion, “the military note was dominant in the tinting of many of the tailored suits which, called tan or mustard or by some other fashionable word of the season, bordered on the color of the soldiers’ khaki.

“The air was chilly, but the sun was bright, the churches were filled with worshippers … and each face, while wearing the anxious expression caused by the uncertainty of the coming events, seemed also to glow with the Easter joy.”