The Great War: April 4, 1917

A hundred years ago today, the front page of the Hudson Evening Register reported that the Senate and the House of Representatives were deliberating on whether or not to declare war on Germany. Also on the front page was this article about measures being taken "to guard Hudson's water works against possible hostile acts."

 

This account of the effort to protect the water supply in the days before the U.S. entered World War I calls to mind the regrettable story of Ansar Mahmood, the pizza deliverer who, a month after the attack on the World Trade Center, asked a DPW employee to take a picture of him near the water treatment plant and ended up being investigated by the FBI and eventually deported.
COPYRIGHT 2017 CAROLE OSTERINK