Sunday, May 26, 1918

Thousands of Trojans gather outside the county court house this evening to hear “vivid word pictures of just why Troy must contribute $150,000 to the American Red Cross society.” Mayor Cornelius F. Burns presides from a grandstand erected in front of the court house entrance. “In spite of threatening weather conditions thousands of people thronged Second street and Seminary park long before Doring’s band started playing,” The Record reports. “Each speaker made a forceful plea for everyone to give – to give every possible penny. Conditions in Europe were vividly pictured while those in the audience were asked if they intended to allow the plea for funds to go unheeded when their own boys were in the thick of the battle on the western front. “Not the least of the work of obtaining the funds was borne by the women workers, who with little canvas bags or cardboard boxes picked their way in and out of the throng with the plea of ‘ Won’t you give something to the Red Cross?’ “It is believed that every person within the space occupied by the crowd was asked that question, some of them on two or three occasions, and it is also believed that there was a 100 per cent response.” No contribution is too small, says George N. Patrick. He announces a $100 pledge from an anonymous donor as well as a ten-cent pledge from “an aged inmate of the county house, a feeble woman, who had no more to give and sent the subscription because she could not personally attend.

“That’s the American spirit!” Patrick exclaims, “and now I want someone to give me $100 to match with that dime.” The mayor promptly obliges, followed by three more $100 pledges and many more in smaller denominations.

“The crowd thrilled when an elderly man, apparently not blessed with an overload of the world’s goods, stepped from the throng and threw a dollar bill up into the speaker’s stand,” our reporter writes.

“All contributions were made in an admirable spirit of giving for the giving’s sake” – with possibly one exception.

“In turning in some of the money collected the officials found that someone had dropped two marks and one-half mark in one of the boxes,” our writer notes darkly, “The person who contributed these German coins is thought to have done so in a malicious spirit, rather than in that of practical joking.”

Exactly how much Trojans contributed, minus the marks, is a state secret, since “the government wants no reports other than verified figures to be made and this cannot be done at the present time.”

-- Kevin Gilbert