100 years ago in The Record
Monday, Aug. 6, 1917
“The southeast section of the grounds about the Troy jail were photographed today,” The Record reports. What’s newsworthy about that? “The pictures were not taken to display any gorgeous growth of beautiful flowers, nor any exhibit of home gardening in patriotic support of the multiplication of corn, cabbage and potatoes,” our reporter writes, “There was nothing sentimental or gastronomically emotional connected with the photographic event, but at the same time, it had very ‘significant’ significance.” Yet something was going on that “was witnessed by many, and even trolley cars stopped in making the Fifth avenue curve at Ferry street to permit passengers to behold what was to be beheld.” You might expect an execution after our writer’s buildup, and you’d be sort of right. But instead of a man awaiting death, there are “just forty nickel-in-the-slot machines awaiting execution.” The slot machines have been confiscated by county law enforcement since Sheriff William P. Powers took office in January 1916. Limited to a single two-year term by the state constitution, Powers wants a photo of the captures slots as a souvenir of his time in office. He considers the elimination of slot machines from Troy one of his main accomplishments as sheriff. “So far as I know, there are no slot machines working in Troy at present, and that means that much money is finding its way into home economies and marketing,” Powers tells our writer.
After the photo shoot, the machines are smashed with a sledge hammer. The remains will be sold as scrap to benefit the county treasury.
ANYONE BUT MORRIS?
Republican party leaders hope to announce a mayoral primary challenger to Fourth Ward alderman George T. Morris before the end of the week, our paper reports.
Morris, a maverick fiscal conservative, has scared off many establishment Republicans after declaring his candidacy before the Troy cohort of the county committee had a chance to endorse a candidate of their own.
An anonymous GOP source tells our reporter that party leaders “hope to make it obligatory … to get out and hustle for [their candidate’s] nomination.” The source predicts that “none of the plans of the controlling powers would fail.”
The leadership, i.e. the faction led by former state prison superintendent Cornelius V. Collins, is still waiting to hear back from businessman William J. O’Brien.
“Mr. O’Brien is being sought largely because of his affiliations in certain social and fraternal organizations,” our writer explains. His family connections could prove helpful as well. He’s the brother of former district attorney Jarvis P. O’Brien, while his son works for the office of Governor Charles S. Whitman.