100 years ago in The Record
Monday, Oct. 15, 1917
If elections were decided by the turnout at campaign rallies, Cornelius F. Burns would win his fourth term as mayor of Troy in a landslide – at least that’s the impression The Record gives after Burns and his Republican challenger, George T. Morris, hold campaign rallies tonight.
Our paper has endorsed Burns, a Democrat, despite supporting Republicans at the county, state and national level. Our editors have sharply criticized Morris, a maverick fiscal conservative representing the Fourth Ward in the common council, for unseemly personal attacks on Burns.
The Record’s coverage of Morris’s rally at the Sixteenth Ward Republican Club cites a small turnout as proof that Morris isn’t connecting with voters. Only 76 spectators are on hand when Morris begins his speech, while late stragglers raise the number to 94. By comparison, “between 700 and 800” people from the Tenth and Thirteenth wards hear Burns talk at St. Patrick’s Hall.
Both speeches focus on the city water works department. Morris has chided Burns for hiring a “foreign” (i.e. out-of-town) talent, John M. Diven, as water works superintendent. He criticizes Diven for maintaining an extravagant office, conducting private business there, and hiring “foreign” contractors for a “convenient” repair project at the Tomhannock reservoir earlier this year.
Tonight, Morris accuses The Record of covering up its own past criticism of the water department under Burns and Diven. “The water department has been flooded with political appointees,” Morris reads, “It is probable that $50,000 could be cut out of any city budget to-day without the slightest sacrifice in efficiency.” As for the mayor, “I do not accuse my opponent of corrupt methods and I believe him to be a public-spirited citizen. But he has been in office so long that he has lost interest in the affairs of Troy and his thoughts are absorbed by visions of greatness in the fields of state and national politics.” At St. Patrick’s Burns devotes his entire speech to a defense of the water department. He explains that Diven had to work fast to have repairs done on a crack in the Tomhannock spillway. Facing the prospect of a dam break worse than the Johnstown Flood, “two of the most expert water engineers in the United States” recommended building a coffer dam to relieve pressure on the original structure. “Local contractors were unable to undertake the work,” the mayor notes, forcing Diven to turn to “a large contracting company” that had been working on a nearby federal dam. Their efforts “prevented the destruction of a large amount of property and possibly the loss of many lives,” Burns adds.