100 years ago in Spokane: An agriculture dignitary warned a crowd that fossil fuels, food production were dwindling

Dr. W.J. Spillman of the U.S. Department of Agriculture had some sobering words for the crowd at his lecture at the Central Christian Church in Spokane.

Fossil fuels, especially coal-based fuels, were growing scarce.

“Coal oil will not last more than 20 years longer,” he said. “Anthracite coal 50 years, and bituminous 700 years,” he said. “You say that water power and electricity will take its place, but there is not enough water power in this country to take the place of the power now being generated by coal. Some other source of power will have to be discovered.”

He also had warnings about the nation’s soil health and food production.

“We are fast approaching the time when we will no longer be able to export food products, but will have to import them instead.”

From the education beat: Thousands of teachers were in Spokane for a huge regional teachers convention.

They were told by a keynote speaker that, contrary to popular opinion, “young people today are all right.”

Julia Spooner, president of the Grade School Teachers Association of Portland, said that if the older generation “were as wholesome, clean-minded, and moral as the young people between 18 and 25, there would be less scandal and divorce.”

“(Young people) may not be quite as respectful as they might be, but I don’t want them to respect old age simply because it is old,” she told her fellow teachers. “If old age is virtuous, it is entitled to respect.”