Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The raging European war was felt in various ways throughout the Inland Northwest.

In Ritzville, which had a large German population, a meeting was held to raise funds for German widows, orphans and wounded soldiers. Within three minutes, $300 was raised.

Meanwhile, Spokane jeweler George R. Dodson finally heard some encouraging news about his wife and two daughters, who were in Germany when the war broke out and had not been heard from since. Dodson received a telegram, signed by Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, which said, “Consul at Dresden cables Mrs. Dodson safe and well.”

The two girls, who were studying music and languages in Dresden, were also apparently safe and well.

Meanwhile, the colorful Irish policeman Dan Phelan told reporters, apparently jokingly, that he was concerned about the rate of the German advances in Europe.

“The way they are coming, it will be New York for breakfast and Chicago for lunch,” said Phelan. He added that “Spokane ought to get ’em” pretty soon.

Meanwhile, Spokane’s Socialist Party met and drafted an anti-war resolution that said “we of the working class refuse to kill or prepare to kill our fellow workers, whose brothers we are.”

They denounced those who counsel war and incite war as “pernicious and devilish.”