Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 50 years ago

The executive secretary of the Spokane Council of Churches came down hard against a 1960 ballot initiative that would have allowed taverns to serve hard liquor.

He said it would be a “means of returning to old-time conditions of pre-Prohibition days, when we had open saloons.”

He also said the initiative posed a “serious moral issue” since it would encourage hard-liquor consumption and cause “problems in family relations and finances.”

The initiative would go on to lose by a huge margin.

From the daylight saving file: Meanwhile, another Spokane theater owner opposed another statewide initiative, which would establish daylight saving time throughout the state.

He said it would be “detrimental to the entertainment industry,” a subject he presumably knew something about.

Yet he said it would also be bad for farmers, whose cows would have to go through a “difficult period of adjustment” and for young children, who would have to get up in the dark to go to school.

This initiative went on to pass.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1825: The Erie Canal opened in upstate New York, connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River.