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

From our archives, 100 years ago

The laundry workers strike in Spokane was beginning to get ugly.

Four young women claimed that the manager of the Crescent Laundry had assaulted them when they tried to enter the laundry. Two of the women were leaders in the laundry workers strike.

They said they had been handled so roughly that they could show bruises. The manager denied assaulting them, saying that he had simply barred the door and “pushed them back” when they tried to enter.

He said that he had already raised his workers’ wages from 13 cents an hour to 15 cents – and had reduced the workday to only eight hours.

From the court beat: A woman waiting in police court for her vagrancy case to come to trial figured out an easy way to make bail.

She picked the pocket of a nearby city police detective. She rifled through his “fat wallet” and extracted $50 without him knowing it.

Then she coolly walked over to the clerk of court, handed over her $35 bond, and waltzed out.

She was arrested the next day on Division Street for larceny.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1954: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, unanimously struck down racially segregated public schools.