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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

100 years ago in Spokane: Sen. Miles Poindexter says he likely won’t be GOP presidential nominee

U.S. Sen. Miles Poindexter told the Spokane Chronicle in April 1920 that a bias against the Pacific coast would likely prevent him from receiving the GOP nomination for president. (S-R archives)
Jim Kershner

U.S. Senator Miles Poindexter, from Spokane, downplayed the chance that he would become the Republican presidential nominee.

He said he was only one of a half-dozen viable candidates, and that the outcome was, “so to speak, on the knees of the gods.”

By that, he meant the hands of fate.

He noted that objections had been raised about having a candidate from the Pacific coast. These objections, surprisingly, did not come entirely from the East and Midwest. He said they also came from Washington and California.

Poindexter suggested it arose from “that peculiar psychology of doubt or hesitation or self-deprecation which minimizes the importance of one’s own section of the country.”

From the polygamy beat: Yet another of “Bluebeard” Huirt’s many wives was missing and feared dead. Beatrice Andrewartha of Rossland, British Columbia, was among the names that police found in Huirt’s correspondence and records, and her sister reported that she had disappeared without a trace.

A body found near Olympia had still not been identified. Police believed it may be one of his wives, several of whom were missing.

One of his other wives, Elizabeth Williamson of Spokane, discussed Huirt’s possible motives for crimes against so many women. She said Huirt told her many times about the cruel beatings his mother inflicted upon him as a boy. Williamson believed he was “getting revenge on womankind.”

Huirt was being held by police in Los Angeles and was recovering from self-inflicted wounds after he tried to kill himself after his arrest.