100 years ago in Spokane: ‘German soviet’ plot foiled, police say

Spokane police claimed that they stopped a plot to “establish a German soviet” in Spokane, according to the Spokane Daily Chronicle.

They arrested C.K. Quast, “a German alien,” in his room at the Palm Hotel. They said he was “the head of a newborn movement” to establish a radical government in Spokane, the Chronicle reported.

Police gave few other details, except to say that his case was being investigated by immigration authorities.

His arrest was part of a larger police roundup of Wobbiles and other radicals.

From the Wobbly beat: A signed letter, allegedly from a managing secretary of the Wobblies, threatened eight members of Spokane’s American Legion with the same fate that befell four slain American Legion men in Centralia.

The letter said that if the American Legion continued to “create hatred against the I.W.W. of Spokane, … they will follow in the footsteps of the marked ones of Centralia.”

The letter then proceeded to list the eight “marked ones” in Spokane, including the commander, office manager and members of the executive committee.” The letter was signed, “Yours for a free world, Fred Rushman, managing secretary” of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Meanwhile, the local American Legion called for a huge mass meeting at the Spokane Armory, with all Legion members and ex-servicemen invited to attend.

The purpose of the meeting was to urge action against the Wobblies, the Chronicle said.

“We do not want it understood at all that we are trying to usurp the power of the police or any other civil authorities,” said a Legion spokesman. “But we want action and are going to see that we get it. We want the town cleaned up as far as the I.W.W.s are concerned.”