Jim Kershner’s This day in history » On the Web: spokesman.com/topics/local-history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spokane’s noted suffragist and social reformer May Arkwright Hutton had a serious bone to pick with the Ringling Bros. Circus, which had just left town.

She wrote an outraged letter to the editor saying that she and several other people had asked Ringling Bros. to supply free passes for the city’s orphanages. She was told by a Ringling ad man that he might have said yes “if they could have used the story for advertising purposes.” But it was too late for that, so he said no.

Hutton, undeterred, went to the box office and asked what the price would be for tickets for 100 orphans. She was curtly informed that the price would be $100, no discount at all. Hutton had no way to raise that much money in so little time.

So the orphans were unable to go. Hutton said the faces of the “more favored children of the city” beamed as they watched the circus, while the orphans were crestfallen when told they could not attend.

Hutton suggested that in the future, the city should demand free admission for orphans. She was tired of these “traveling mountebanks” walking all over the people of Spokane.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1960: The newly renamed Beatles (formerly the Silver Beetles) began their first gig in Hamburg, West Germany, at the Indra Club.