100 years ago in Spokane: Oath of allegiance demanded of local teachers

The Spokane school superintendent said every teacher in the city schools must sign an oath of allegiance to the U.S. in front of a notary public.

If teachers failed to comply, they would not be given a contract. The superintendent’s secretary had been commissioned as a notary, to speed up the process.

From the shipbuilding beat: Henry L. Scholl, of Spokane, applied for a patent for his method of building a concrete ship quickly. He claimed to have invented a form that can be built in one day.

The U.S. government saw the patent and asked him and his architect to come to Washington, D.C., at once to discuss what might be an important invention during wartime.

From the international affairs beat: Spokane attorney Fred C. Robinson told a patriotic meeting that Germany was trying to spread anti-Japanese propaganda.

“We must recognize in Japan a friend of America and eradicate the German propaganda against her here,” he said. “ … Japan desires to be the United States of the orient and is prompted by the highest ideals in this wish. Germany has attempted to get a foothold in China, and Japan has tried to prevent this.”

This date in history

(From the Associated Press)

1777: During the American Revolutionary War, 16-year-old Sybil Ludington, the daughter of a militia commander in Dutchess County, New York, rode her horse into the night to alert her father’s men of the approach of British regular troops.