100 years ago in Spokane: Police aim to keep Wobblies in line

Spokane police were in a bind over how to deal with the city’s Wobblies, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported.

Over a dozen Wobblies had just been acquitted of charges of “criminal syndicalism” – a recent law targeting Wobblies as members of a criminal and violent group. Now some people were demanding police action against Wobblies who were picketing Spokane employment agencies.

Spokane’s commissioner of public safety said police were “powerless to stop the picketing,” because there was no law against picketing. He suggested the employment agencies apply to the Superior Court for an injunction if they wanted to stop it.

However, the commissioner vowed to make more arrests for criminal syndicalism if the Wobblies engaged in violence, disturbances and other “rough work” – or even if they distributed “their propaganda.”

The question of whether such charges would stand up in court was not, he said, his problem. It was the department’s duty to enforce the criminal syndicalism law as long as it was on the books.

“What becomes of the cases afterward makes no difference,” he said.

From the hotel beat: The Chronicle had uncovered a fraud among several Spokane hotels. They advertised “steam heat,” but failed to deliver any such heat.

Now the state hotel inspector vowed to take all hotels to court in violation of deceptive advertising laws.