Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The Bunny Hug, the Dallas Dip, the Boston Glide, the Society Hop, the University Rag and the Turkey Trot were no longer welcome in Spokane dance halls.

Spokane’s mayor and the city’s “professors” of dance  came to an agreement in which those “suggestive” dances would be banned.

“There are some who dance with their eyebrows and noses touching, so that they take gum from each other’s mouths,” noted one dance hall proprietor.

Some of the traditional dance masters could hardly contain their distaste at what they called a “perverted form” of the “tote” dance.

“It makes me mighty sick when I see some youngsters trying to give it,” said Prof. Bouley, a teacher at a dance academy.

The committee said they would also ask the Spokane Musicians Association to stop performing “rag” (i.e., ragtime) music or anything with the word “rag” in the title.

One dance-hall proprietor blamed the city’s ladies for the problem. He said some women refused to dance unless it was a rag.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1917: Congress passed, over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, an immigration act severely curtailing the influx of Asians.