Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Spokesman-Review’s editorials were particularly striking on this date.

The lead editorial noted that most of the passengers rescued from the Titanic were women and children, a fact reflecting the “chivalry, heroism and self-sacrifice of Americans and Englishmen in defense of helpless women and children.”

The headline read: “American and English Manhood Stands the Crucial Test.”

Another editorial extolled the virtues of “pedestrianism,” i.e., walking.

“The return of spring revives the walker’s longing to tramp the lanes and leafy ways,” said the editorial writer.

“One hungers to mix the sunshine with his blood and feel the uncontaminate breath of the warm winds upon his brow.”

Yet the writer worries that Americans “do not or can not appreciate the delights of walking and seem to have lost the inspiring art.”

Americans “restrict our voluntary walking to the golf links or the billiard table.”

Yet those who walk know the pleasures to be had: The beauty of the wildflowers, the sweet sun, and the “heath, exhilaration and comfortable fatigue that is the mother of sweet sleep.”