100 years ago in Spokane: The embattled ex-VA director from the city adamantly denied rumors of scandal and debauchery at Hayden Lake

Former Spokane resident Charles R. Forbes, ex-director of the federal Veteran’s Bureau, declared that “every charge and every word of testimony reflecting on my personal integrity are utterly and absolutely false.”

Elias Mortimer of Philadelphia had told a Senate investigating committee that Forbes had accepted a $5,000 bribe and awarded contracts during booze parties. One of those parties had been held at Hayden Lake.

Forbes was scheduled to give his side of the story to the Senate committee in a week.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press dredged up some details about his divorce, obtained while he was living in Spokane. The prosecutor said “he preferred the company and society of other than Mrs. Forbes and her 10-year-old daughter, Marcia.” The AP said that “utmost secrecy and effort to conceal both the divorce action and the granting of the decree had been used.”

From the gambling beat: During an estate hearing, “Dutch Jake” Goetz shed some light on the gambling operation at his old California house, one of the famous gambling saloons in old-time Spokane.

He said “free drinks were given the gamblers to make them loosen up” and encourage higher stakes. Yet there was also a superstition that when a man got thoroughly drunk, “he was more lucky than when he could tell the cards apart.” They debated cutting out the free drinks, yet they had to continue that practice because of competition from other resorts.

The surplus money every night – about $10,000 – went into a sack and was split between Dutch Jake and his partner Harry Baer, who owned the hotel, and Mike and Larry Doneen, who ran the games.

This came out in a hearing in which Hannah Seward, a widow, claimed that she had been engaged to Mike Doneen and was entitled to a portion of his $86,000 estate.