100 years ago in Spokane: The innovative new technology of radio promised to make a local dance, and rumors of Ku Klux Klan involvement in a witness-tampering scheme were widely refuted

A dance at the University Club in Spokane was set to feature music supplied by a modern technology: “a wireless telephone receiving set.”

That is, radio.

A radio receiver was installed at the club by a local wireless enthusiast, Ernest F. Goodner.

The music was to be broadcast by one of Seattle’s fledgling stations, along with piano selections sent out by Spokane’s first commercial station.

“The tone will be amplified between 200 and 300 times and it will be heard distinctly on all parts of the dance floor,” promised Goodner.

This would be the first time radio music would be used for a public dance in Spokane.

From the justice beat: The unofficial citizen’s committee, looking into possible witness tampering during the Maurice P. Codd murder trial, continued to question witnesses.

However, the committee was forced to respond to a rumor that the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was behind the investigation.

E.C. Morris, chairman of the committee, said he was not a member of the Klan and the group had nothing to do with the investigation.

Lillian Bergman, landlady of the Granite Building where the Codd incident took place, said she had “no reason to believe” that the Klan was involved.

The rumor apparently involved threatening letters sent to witnesses, purporting to be from the Klan. The office manager of Spokane’s Ku Klux Klan chapter said it had no involvement whatsoever in the case, and if anyone received such letters, they were forgeries.