100 years ago in Spokane: Patriotic pride in tact, Spokane surpasses war bond quota

After a long period anxiety, both Spokane and the state of Washington met their Liberty bond (war bond) quotas.

For several weeks, the newspapers and civic leaders had been pleading with citizens to buy more war bonds in order to meet the quotas. Early figures showing Spokane lagging had been a serious blow to the city’s patriotic pride.

Yet all of that pleading – an, in some cases, coercion – finally paid off, with Spokane approaching the $5 million mark in Liberty bonds. Spokane was now officially listed as “oversubscribed.”

From the Wobbly beat: Spokane police raided two “new secret headquarters” of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies) and several people were arrested.

One of the places was a three-room house on Second Avenue. Police carted away “a wagonload of I.W.W. literature” and a loaded pistol.

The other “headquarters” was a room at the St. Regis Hotel. An attorney, A. Hofstad, was arrested along with five other men and a woman, and they were booked under a new criminal syndicalism ordinance. Hofstad was already facing disbarment proceedings in Idaho.