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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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

From our archives, 75 years ago

A group of students at the University of Idaho organized a new, and deeply sarcastic, organization in 1936.

They called it the “William Randolph Hearst Post of the Veterans of Future Wars” in honor of the famous jingoist publisher.

They settled on that name after reluctantly vetoing one student’s suggestion that “one member be killed and the post named after him in keeping with veteran tradition.”

The group then approved a number of resolutions:

• The immediate payment of $1,000 to every member as a way “to lift our country out of depression.”

• The immediate stamping-out of subversive elements in the nation’s schools and colleges “as soon as we understand what the word subversive means.”

Yet they voted down a plan to “place munitions manufacturers in the front-line trenches,” because someone pointed out that “you can’t have wars without munitions makers.”

One of the members described the group “as the first youth movement that may mean something to youth.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1775: Patrick Henry delivered an address to the Virginia Provincial Convention in which he is said to have declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”