100 years ago in Spokane: Hundreds crowd Episcopal church for British faith healer

Crowds by the hundreds jammed Spokane’s All Saint’s Episcopal Cathedral to be treated by a British faith healer, James Moore Hickson.

They arrived “in wheeled chairs, in limousines, on crutches, on the arms of their friends, hobbling by use of canes, bent and crippled, deaf and blind,” said The Spokesman-Review.

Hickson did not charge any fee for his services and “there is nothing theatrical or spectacular about his method,” said a reporter. Hickson said he had “no power in himself – I do not claim it.”

“Spiritual healing is healing through Christianity and it all centers in Christ,” he said. “He is the healer and no one else can give healing. Don’t look for me for it.”

Hickson touched the brow of each person as they knelt before the altar and “muttered a short prayer.”

From the technology beat: An ad in the Spokane Daily Chronicle showed a well-dressed man sitting in his parlor, listening to a Victrola “talking machine” (record player).

The advertising copy read: “ ‘Thanks to the Victrola,’ said a business man, ‘I can sit down for a while every day and forget that I have a business. The Victrola gives my imagination a chance. It was in a fair way of being starved. No man can afford to neglect the side of his nature to which music appeals. The business man who takes a little while off each day to listen to the great masters on the Victrola or to indulge in lighter music will find himself keener at his desk – and a better citizen besides.’ ”