100 years ago in Spokane: Newspaper backs Woodrow Wilson’s call to declare war

President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war. An immense crowd, packed into the U.S. Capitol, “bellowed a hoarse shout of approval.”

The Spokesman-Review editorial page also expressed its wholehearted approval, if less raucously. The headline on the lead editorial was, “President Voices the Will of the People.”

“The president’s words, while good-tempered, expressed the deep indignation of the nation over the cruel and lawless acts of the German submarine,” wrote the editors. “His decision that armed neutrality would be but a temporary expedient, inevitably leading to war, proves his clearness of vision.”

The editorial summed up the nation’s situation by saying that “it appears inevitable” that the U.S. would be at war in a few days at most. Both houses of Congress were prepared to act quickly on the joint resolution for war.

From the murder beat

John Brown, 22, a former Oklahoma cowboy, shot his married sweetheart, Mrs. Ethel Taylor, 31, dead in a room at the Vinson Hotel.

Her mother, in a room next door, saw Brown run out of the room with a pistol in his hand. The mother shouted, “John, what did you do?”

He “ran a few feet further, stopped, and putting the pistol to his head, fired two more shots” and dropped in a heap.

Ethel Taylor died, but Brown survived his self-inflicted wounds. At the emergency hospital, he said “I loved that girl, that’s why I shot her. She owed me money and I wanted her to go away with me, but she refused.”

He remained fully conscious, but in critical condition.