100 years ago today: A Chicago couple was getting some holiday help after falling for the rumor of plentiful job opportunities in Spokane

Two Chicago newlyweds were among the many victims of what the Spokane Daily Chronicle called “Dame Rumor” – meaning, the rumors sweeping cities in the Midwest and East that jobs were plentiful in Spokane.

“Rumor reported that any man could get a job,” the Chronicle reported.

When the couple arrived in Spokane, they discovered the truth.

“Their plans were merely bubbles, and conditions here were fully as serious as in the East.” The husband was able to find only “short jobs that paid a few cents an hour.”

“For a time, the young wife worked here and there, but hunger, and hard work, privation and disappointment have made their visits too often, and now the young wife is ill,” the Chronicle reported.

“Sure, we’ll get along,” the young man said, patting the hand of his wife. “All I want is a job, something steady, and a chance to show that I can make good.”

Meanwhile, the Good Fellows – Spokane’s holiday charity group – was helping out the couple.

From the trial beat: Joseph Codd, the brother of Maurice Codd and one of the defendants in a subornation of perjury trial, admitted on the stand that he and another brother gave some money to witnesses in the Maurice Codd murder trial, and also put up bond money for them when they were charged, along with the brothers, with perjury.

But he said he only did so on the advice of his attorney, who said “it was all right to do these things.”

“My idea in doing it was to repay these people and protect them for the services they had rendered my brother,” Joseph Codd said. “They had testified in his behalf to facts which they claimed to be true, and I felt it was my duty to stand by them when they had been charged with a crime.”