100 years ago in Spokane: With prohibition on the way, city leaders consider substitutes for saloons

From our archives, 100 years ago

What should be done to replace the saloons as meeting places for workingmen when prohibition took effect in in a few months?

Spokane ministers and civic leaders were divided on this issue, to say the least.

At a meeting of the Public Welfare League, the Rev. F.B. Short of the First Methodist Church said the churches had no obligation to provide “loafing places” for the men who now frequent saloons. He said, in essence, that this was the city government’s problem.

W.J. Coates, a former city commissioner, bristled at the reference to “loafing places” and said that the minister “had no proper understanding of the men he is discussing.” Coates said “proper meeting places” should have been provided years ago, and if they had, there “never would have been any saloon evil.”

Rabbi David Levine of Temple Emanu-El, said that the saloons came about because they supplied a need. However, he warned that “if we try to substitute an artificial creation for an institution that evolved naturally,” it would not succeed.

This was borne out by the attitude of the labor unions, who had decided not to take part in creating a workingmen’s club because they were afraid “it would turn out to be something on the charitable order.”

However, Rabbi Levine liked the idea of a combination “lunchroom-employment office-clubroom” where men could play cards and apply for work. He added that he was not in favor of supplying soft drinks, “which are likely to soften the brain.”

Another speaker, H.L. Hughes, advised everyone to quit fretting, He said “pool halls and places of the kind will spring up all over the city.”