Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Seven conductors on the Spokane Traction Co.’s streetcar lines were fired after a team of spotters – undercover observers – claimed that the conductors failed to ring up fares.

The allegation was not merely that they were giving free rides to their friends. The allegation was that they would habitually slip nickels into their own pockets instead.

A number of these spotters were women. The idea, apparently, was that women “were more given to reading books on streetcars” and thus they could inconspicuously keep a fake bookmark open on the page. They would use that bookmark to tabulate the number of passengers, cash fares and transfers.

The spotters often worked in teams, with one getting on the streetcar when the other exited.

One of the discharged conductors vigorously denied the charges. He told The Spokesman-Review that he never took a nickel that belonged to the company nor did he want a single cent that did not belong to him.

Yet this conductor was now out looking for another job.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1947: The balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki, which had carried a six-man crew 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean, crashed into a reef in a Polynesian archipelago; all six crew members reached land safely.