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

From our archives, 100 years ago

To find out what issues made the public spitting mad in 1911, all you had to do was read the letters to the editor:

Socialism vs. anarchy: J.E. Arnett, the Spokane organizer for the Socialist Party, fired off an angry letter in response to a preacher’s earlier remark that “socialism in most of our cities is about one-fourth socialism and three-fourths anarchy.”

Arnett challenged the preacher to come up with any city meeting that description. Arnett went on to say that socialists, unlike anarchists, are opposed to violence in every form.

Arnett suggested that the preacher study the Ninth Commandment (against bearing false witness) before making such statements. The Socialist Party was surprisingly influential in the region in those days. Hillyard would elect a Socialist mayor in 1913.

The evils of the saloon: “Sister” Flora Bilkiss of the Child’s Welfare League took another letter writer to task for implying that saloons provided men with a healthy way to blow off steam.

“95 percent of the criminals today in the penitentiaries are there through drink,” Sister Bilkiss wrote. “We can trace nearly every evil to the saloon.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1941: The Imperial Japanese navy launched a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, claiming some 2,400 American lives.