100 YEARS AGO IN THE SARATOGIAN
Friday, March 22, 1918. Students in the Saratoga Springs public schools have bought nearly $3,500 worth of thrift stamps for the U.S. war effort, school superintendent Charles L. Mosher tells the Mothers’ Club today.
That amount is equivalent to more than $62,000 in 2018 money. “It has been proved that this war is everybody’s business,” Mosher says, “and the schools of Saratoga Springs are certainly doing their part.”
Besides buying thrift stamps, students have contributed 730 volumes for an American Liberty Association book drive, the third such effort since the U.S. declared war on Germany last April.
Mosher assures the mothers that “Although the public schools have accepted this additional job they have not neglected their own work. In fact we have been trying to use this new work in such a way that we can teach the children the old tasks in a more interesting way.
“I feel if we teach them nothing else but thrift, the ability to work together, and to forget their own selfish ends and to work for others that our labor has not been in vain.”
Rev. George C. Douglass of First Methodist Church tells the mothers, “We hear that we are in this war to make democracy safe for the whole world. That is a great idea, but what are the necessities of a true Democracy? I believe that in order to endure a democracy must be tempered with knowledge and virtue.”
Douglass believes that the U.S. should strike an even balance of knowledge and virtue. That would compare favorably with Russia, where most people are illiterate but “their virtues are high,” and Japan, whose people have “a great record for knowledge .… but their virtue is very low.”
Knowledge is increasing rapidly in an era when “the newspapers right here in Saratoga Springs are able by means of new inventions to tell us all about what has occurred in Europe the very day it happens ….Without this knowledge we would not be able to accomplish all these big things.”
As long as schools provide knowledge – Douglass believes teachers should be better paid – and the churches instill virtue, “There is no doubt but what great race is to come.”
Professional Wrestling
Mechanicville wrestling fans are disappointed tonight when heavyweight star Wladek Zbyszko doesn’t make it to town in time to face Dutch champion Tom Draak at the Park Avenue. Zbyszko leaves New York City at 4 p.m. but doesn’t reach Mechanicville until 11 p.m.
In Zbyszko’s absence middleweight wrestling star Gene Westegaard “gave an exhibition of wrestling holds” after three preliminary bouts. Refunds are offered to those whom demand them.
— Kevin Gilbert