100 years ago in Spokane: Reliability of election polls an issue in 1916, too

From our archive, 100 years ago

A feature story touted Miss Lucille Zintheo as Spokane’s latest movie star “in the firmament of filmdom.”

In fact, one already famous film star, Lillian Russell, had picked Zintheo out as the “the West’s most beautiful girl.”

Zintheo had just been signed to a “lucrative contract” with the Herbert Brenon Film Corp. in New York.

Her big break had come earlier in the year when she was chosen as one of 11 winners in Photoplay magazine’s “Beauty and Brains” contest.

The magazine sent Zintheo, 21, to New York for film tryouts, and “according to the New York papers, she made the biggest hit of any of the 11 winners.”

Zintheo would, in fact, go on to have a moderate career in silent movies, mostly in short films, and mostly under the name of Lucille Carlisle after she changed her name in 1919.

From the election beat: There were no telephone polls in 1916, but The Spokesman-Review was attempting to predict the election outcome in a similar way by conducting what it called a test vote.

The paper sent test ballots to hundreds of people culled from its subscription lists. The results showed that the Republican challenger Charles E. Hughes was leading incumbent Woodrow Wilson by a large majority.

However, the paper also printed a list of similar test votes taken by newspapers across the country, which showed Wilson comfortably ahead.

Wilson would, in fact, go on to win the election.