100 years ago in Spokane: Police arrest out-of-work men in attempt to boost employment

A police squad arrested 25 “alleged vagrants” in a “go to work” campaign.

Police said that this campaign would continue until “all able-bodied men who have been loafing and are now without funds are made to go back to work.”

The arrests took place between 3-5 a.m. near Main and Trent avenues.

“Men of nearly all nationalities are included,” said the Spokane Daily Chronicle.

From the ‘town father’ beat: James A. Glover, “the Father of Spokane,” was celebrating his 84th birthday.

His health, however, had gone downhill.

“He is unable to walk because of ‘weeping legs,’ caused by nervous breakdown, but his spirit is firm and he is waiting for spring,” the newspaper reported.

He hoped soon to get around to “view the improvements and meet my friends of the old, old town.”

He said he had no intention of going back to California, as he did the previous summer on a doctor’s recommendation. He was not pleased with the trip and wanted to stay in Spokane.

“Spokane is my idol and will be until the last,” he said.

From the business beat: F.A. Stokes, head of Spokane’s Colored Men’s Business League, said that an auto garage “owned and operated entirely by the colored people of Spokane” was in the works.

It would be called Hill’s Garage and was capitalized at $6,000, subscribed by the league’s members.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

44 B.C.: Roman dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of nobles that included Brutus and Cassius.