This day in history: Two-week strike grounds United flights; Spokane leaders call for Hedger recall in connection with Prohibition

From 1975: The United Airlines desk at Spokane International Airport was back in business after two weeks of inactivity.

The nationwide strike by ground service employees ended after it grounded the airline for two weeks.

Only one United flight left Spokane the day after the strike ended, because most of the United planes had been ferried to Seattle over the previous two weeks.

A United representative said service was being restored gradually, because “there are a lot of crews to move and a lot of airplanes to get into position.”

Three more flights were scheduled to leave the next day, and full service was planned in two days.

From 1925: Charles Hedger, Spokane’s commissioner of public safety, was in the hottest of hot water.

Three different groups accused him of allowing Spokane to be a “wide open town” and a haven for liquor and gambling.

The Spokane Board of Trade, a downtown merchants’ group, and the Spokane Ministerial Association demanded Hedger’s recall, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union also said they endorsed a recall drive.

The impetus came from a massive downtown raid on dozens of liquor and gambling spots, carried out by federal Prohibition officers. According to Hedger’s critics, the raids proved that city police had been notoriously lax on enforcement and that federal authorities didn’t trust city or county officers to participate in these raids.

A Board of Trade representative said that “the only means of remedying the situation is to recall Charles Hedger.”

The commissioner of public safety was an elected position under Spokane’s city commission form of government, and he could be removed only by voter recall.