100 years ago in North Idaho: Former Wallace mayor re-enacts shooting in dramatic detail, but tells jury he can’t recall pulling trigger

From our archives, 100 years ago

Herman J. Rossi, former mayor of Wallace, admitted to a jury — “with eyes flashing with excitement” — that he did indeed confront Clarence Dahlquist with a gun.

“With hands clenched, one of them shaped as though it were a pointed revolver… Rossi leaped from the witness chair this afternoon and showed how he fired the shot,” said the paper.

However, he claimed that he had no recollection of actually pulling the trigger. Throughout his testimony, he wept and tried to suppress sobs, his “eyes swimming with tears.”

He said when he returned from a business trip, he found his young wife in bed badly hung over. Her bedroom was in complete disarray. There were a dozen bottles on the window sill, the bedroom glass had been broken and the top of the bedstead had been bent down.

From the sports beat: The Spokesman-Review editorial page extolled the “healthy and sportsmanlike situation of professional baseball” and said it well-deserved the hold it had on the public.

The editorial writer said it was “fortunate indeed” that the country had “at least one sport in whose financial and professional integrity it has confidence.” The game had been kept “clean” for four decades, and it had become “a game of almost universal interest and appeal.”

The infamous Black Sox scandal was still three years away.