100 years ago in The Record
Wednesday, Oct. 10, 1917
Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society superintendent Nathaniel J. Walker has taken the unusual step of endorsing a candidate in the race for Troy police court magistrate.
Walker, who works mainly with juvenile offenders, has endorsed the three-term Democratic incumbent, James F. Byron, in “a letter he is sending to friends.” A copy appears in today’s Record.
Our editors, who lean Republican in county, state and national politics, have endorsed the Democratic city ticket, headed by Mayor Cornelius F. Burns. To give Walker’s endorsement added authority, a reporter describes the superintendent as “perhaps the one man in this vicinity best acquainted with police court proceedings in the cities of the state.”
“For nearly six years Justice Byron and I have worked together in the police court and the children’s court,” Walker writes, “and I am so impressed with the fact that he should be reelected that I do not hesitate to ask your support for him.
“Judge Byron’s peculiar fitness for dealing with cases involving the physical and moral welfare of children has been demonstrated by nearly six years of faithful service. In my judgment he has qualifications, which are rather difficult to find in most men, however well intentioned and competent they may be in other respects.”
Totally ignoring Byron’s Republican challenger, John W. Roberts, Walker advises, “It seems to me the citizens of Troy might as well eliminate politics entirely in as far as the police justiceship is concerned….I feel that keeping Judge Byron in the position which he has so capably filled will be a benefit and help to both the humane and probation work in which I am engaged.”
Exchanging flags
An unusual flag-raising ceremony takes place this afternoon at the Cluett-Peabody & Co. factory in Troy, The Record reports.
The flags raised are the Union Jack of Great Britain and the tricolor of France. The flags of America’s fellow combatants in the war against Germany are gifts to the Troy plant from Cluett factories in St. Johns and Montreal, which have received American flags from Troy in return.
Cluett’s Montreal manager, F. W. Stewart, speaks at today’s flag-raising, telling the Troy workers that their Montreal counterparts have gratefully received the Stars and Stripes.
Employees of the St. Johns plant send a letter expressing “their interest and their loyalty to the employees of the Troy factory,” as well as “their good and sincere gratitude” for the U.S. flag.
E. Harold Cluett accepts the allied flags on behalf of the Troy employees, while the Arrow Orchestra of Cluett workers plays patriotic airs for the occasion.