Jim Kershner’s This day in history » On the Web: spokesman.com/topics/local-history

From our archives, 75 years ago

The Works Progress Administration reported it had 68 projects running in the Spokane region, 27 of which had been completed at a cost of $361,077.

This 1936 version of federal stimulus spending was aimed at providing jobs and improving infrastructure in the depths of the Great Depression.

The most important project, according to a news story, “was the improvement of 2,200 miles of township roads, embracing 50 farm-to-market roads.

“This work consisted of clearing, grading, grubbing, widening, straightening and surfacing roads that had been neglected during the years of the depression for want of funds,” said the WPA. “Of this work, 345 miles have been completed.”

Of course, this and other New Deal programs were not without detractors. In fact, the same edition of The Spokesman-Review carried a wire story in which Alf Landon, preparing to run against Franklin D. Roosevelt, called the new Social Security system a “cruel hoax,” “stupidly drafted” and a “glaring example of bungling and waste.”

Landon did, however, say that he believed in old-age pensions as a “matter of social justice.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1540: Pope Paul III issued a papal bull establishing the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, as a religious order.