100 years ago today: Spokane needs more social clubs for young people

The Spokane Daily Chronicle bemoaned the lack of respectable social clubs for the working young men and women of the city.

The result: “wrecked manhood, ruined girlhood, homes blighted, honor lost.”

Young men and women were ignored by the fraternal lodges and clubs, and the “churches are strangely sparing of warm welcomes,” which left the more nefarious options open.

“There are plenty of loiterers in the parks in summertime willing to start a flirtation,” said an editorial. “Indeed, a stroll down Riverside rarely fails to show an abundance of flippant youths ready to scrape acquaintance with any of their own sort. And the joyride, midnight supper, the room in a cheap hotel – the road to there is entirely too easy for dozens of boys and girls. The evils that follow such chance acquaintance are as much the fault of Spokane as of the young men and women.”

The editors said a “country town of 600 people has, in most instances, better facilities for bringing the right kind of young men and women together than has Spokane.”

The editors called upon the clubs, churches and civic societies to solve this problem.

From the school lunch beat: A new state law went into effect requiring every public school in the state to supply a half-pint of milk to every child under 14 years of age.

This “milk bill” specified “pure, whole milk” would be distributed at lunch – and schools would foot the bill.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1806: Explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, having reached the Pacific coast, began their journey back east.