Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Miss Marie Giroux, who called herself an undercover “white slave (prostitution) investigator” for the federal Department of Justice, caused an uproar when she gave a speech at the Women’s Club.

She claimed she had “entered the house of Irene Adams as an inmate” and after working there two weeks, was “assigned to another place … known as the Mecca, on First Avenue.”

“I do these things in the regular line of my work, the same as a reporter covers an assignment or the policeman walks a beat,” she said.

However, the true shocker came when she said a Spokane police officer’s wife was “conducting a questionable resort (brothel) in the city.”

Police Chief William Weir called her in to find out who she was referring to. She replied, somewhat coyly, that this was confidential information and if the police chief really wanted to know, he should get his “staff of shrewd plain-clothes men” on the case.

Weir, exasperated, said such a charge reflected “on all members of the department” and he would “esteem it a favor” to obtain confidential information so the “innocent would not be punished for the shortcomings of others.” He also noted the other resorts she mentioned have been “raided a number of times.”

Mayor C.M. Fassett issued a statement saying “moral conditions are better in Spokane today” than any time in the city’s history.