100 years ago: Woodrow Wilson secures second term days after vote

From our archive, 100 years ago

After three days of nail-biting, California finally pushed incumbent Woodrow Wilson over the top in the 1916 presidential election.

The Spokane Daily Chronicle, which had adhered to its longtime policy of not endorsing any particular party or candidate, pronounced itself satisfied with the result.

“Woodrow Wilson is today a larger man, a more universal leader, a more efficient president than at any time in the past,” said its lead editorial. “He is not a weak-kneed dreamer, a mere theorist, a book-bound pedagogue or visionary, such as partisan orators attempted to prove during the campaign.”

The Chronicle closed with a call for national unity, in the face of potential war. “Let no petty prejudice, no party jealousy hamper the nation’s progression the next four years.”

From the gender beat: Democrat F.I. Buchanan, who ran unsuccessfully for Spokane school superintendent, issued a plaintive request to the local Republican Party.

“Please put up a man next time,” said Buchanan. “No man can fight a woman.”

He was soundly trounced by Miss Jeanette Donaldson, who won nearly twice as many votes.

From the polio beat: Two Spokane researchers, Dr. Earl Current and Mrs. Ida A. Smith presented a paper to the Spokane Medical Society in which they said had proof that polio was caused by eating a fungus on raw fruits.

They claimed that “bacteria is a secondary, rather than primary cause” of polio and that the disease is “not contagious.”

The world would later learn that polio is caused by a virus and is very contagious.