100 YEARSAGO IN THERECORD
Saturday, Jan. 11, 1919. “Mayor Burns and Leader Joseph J. Murphy are about to go to war for the Mayoralty nomination of the Democratic party next fall,” the Troy Times reports today. A Times reporter claims that the first blow to be struck in the battle for Democratic dominance in the Collar City will be the removal from office of Thomas F. Dougherty, financial agent for the state department of prisons. In what the reporter calls “a regular Salome incident,” Murphy, the longtime leader of the county Democratic committee, has demanded Dougherty’s ouster. Dougherty is seen as Mayor Burns’s man in Troy’s Tenth Ward. Murphy may be trying to strip Burns of patronage in order to preempt the mayor’s try for a fifth consecutive two-year term. First elected in 1911, Burns has had an often- contentious relationship with the city’s Democratic organization, particularly over issues of patronage. His defiance of Murphy has earned the mayor support across the proverbial aisle. The Record, which leans Republican in county, state and national politics, has endorsed Burns consistently since his first reelection campaign in 1913. Murphy recently succeeded in getting one of his men, Thomas H. McDonough, appointed state superintendent of public buildings by the new Democratic governor, Alfred E. Smith. If he succeeds in pushing Dougherty out of his $4,400-a-year post, lo- cal political watchers believe “there will be an open rupture of relations” between City Hall and the Democratic organization. Regiment Is Coming Picking up a New York Globe report, the Times announces today that the Troybased 105th U.S. Infantry regiment will leave France for the U.S. later this month.
The Globe’s special correspondent in France, Arthur D. Howden-Smith, reports that the 27th Division, including the 105th Regiment, is converging on St. Nazaire in preparation for a January 15 departure. If that information proves correct, the Troy troops should reach the U.S. no later than February 1. Officer Arrives Home A number of Troy soldiers have already made their way home, some recovering from wounds, others honorably discharged. Newly arrived this weekend is Lieutenant Charles J. Boland, who served in the 492nd Construction Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Service. He spent the war at the Second Aviation Instruction Centre in Tours, France, described as “the largest observation school of the American Air Service in the world.”
Boland, a 1914 RPI graduate, returned to the U.S. one week ago and was mustered out of service at Garden City on January 8. He tells the Times that “the troops are being returned as fast as possible, and on the return there are the best of accommodations.”