Saturday, Nov. 27, 1915
A Syrian immigrant is in trouble with the law after Rensselaer County sheriff’s deputies find two slot machines in his downtown Troy candy store tonight.
The weekend Northern Budget reports that Abe Morad, “an unnaturalized Trojan from Syria” with a store at 201 Fourth Street, had two “nickel-in-the-slot gambling devices” in his shop, as well as “an invoice of penny chance games.”
Morad hasn’t been arrested, but that may change once Sheriff William P. Powers brings his slot machines before the next grand jury. Powers has been waging a crusade against all forms of illegal gambling since taking office in January. His latest round of raids has netted twenty slot machines.
Speaking of Morad and other store proprietors, Powers tells the Budget, “Maybe they think those machines have been forgotten. They have another think coming. There will be something done about these machines just as soon as a grand jury meets.”
In 1915 “Syria” is a province of the Turkish-ruled Ottoman Empire that includes the future nations of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel.
Powers has a long day today. As a member of the county Republican party advisory committee, he introduces a resolution confirming Harry A. Lewis as the county party leader, only to withdraw it in the face of opposition from several colleagues.
Many Republicans want Lewis, who directed the last two successful countywide campaigns, to take sole responsibility for the distribution of political patronage jobs, among other responsibilities. While most advisory committee members are willing to pledge their personal support to Lewis, they’re also reluctant to strip themselves of power.
Matthew A. Heeran tells Powers that “he would not surrender his prerogatives to anybody,” while Duncan C. Kaye worries that the resolution would make Lewis an old-school party “boss.”
Powers defends his resolution by asking “how the party expected to present a formidable front at the spring primaries without a designated leader.” Without a formal designation of Lewis as leader, he warns, “We will be as a mob instead of an organization.”
Back at the sheriff’s office, Powers hears of “a very strange case” in Valley Falls, where a bloodstained man “was acting in a very strange way.”
William Tracey tells two deputies that he’d just witnessed a murder-suicide, but can’t recall where it happened. He’s jailed on a vagrancy charge for further questioning while the deputies search the area for bodies.
Powers tells reporters that Tracey “appeared rational most of the time,” but notes that the blood on his hands may have come from climbing a barbed-wire fence. The investigation continues, but the deputies suspect that Tracey “was dealing in dope.”
– Kevin Gilbert
