USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 65
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At the election, May 8, 1907, C. Herbert Moore, republican nominee and candi- date of the Good Citizens League, was elected mayor by 1,874 plurality over Floyd I .. Daggett, democrat, on a total vote of about 10.000. The result surprised the element that favored a "liberal" town, who had bet their money with free-handed disregard of the evident magnitude and deep enthusiasm of the reform movement back of Mr. Moore. Robert Fairley, democrat, was elected comptroller by 1,709 majority, and M. H. Eggleston was reelected treasurer by a margin of 219 votes. To the council the democrats elected Leonard Funk, Fred. Baldwin and John Gray ; the republicans M. B. Watkins, W. G. Estep. E. V. Lambert, Robert L. Dalke.
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Charles W. Mohr, J. S. Phillips and B. R. Ostrander. \ $100,000 bond issue was voted for new bridges, and four charter amendments carried: for the assessment of benefited property to defray the cost of laying water mains: for the initiative and referendum; to increase the salaries of city officials, and for the creation of a non- partisan park commission. Bungay, socialist candidate for mayor, polled .292 votes.
As the summer wore along, panic conditions developed swiftly at New York and other eastern financial centers. There was an ominous tightening of the money mar- ket, and the press dispatches brought increasing reports of flurries in Wall street and bank failures cast of the Mississippi. The distant storm scarcely put a ripple on the placid financial waters of the Inland Empire, and a compilation of the year's production, made in October by August Wolf of the press bureau of the chamber of commerce, convinced even the timid ones, that Spokane and its neighboring terri- tory were in excellent condition to withstand any disturbance which might sympa- thetically follow the eastern panic. Mr. Wolf's compilation showed that the indus- tries of the Inland Empire had produced $128.500.000 of new wealth in the year just past, the equivalent of $207 for every person in the district. To lumber was credited $17,000,000. to wheat $32,500.000. to fruits $11,000.000. to dairy pro- duets $5,000,000, to live stock and poultry $11,000.000. and to other farm products $11,000,000.
As a measure of sheer self-protection the bankers of Spokane, after a conference lasting several hours and extending far into the night. decided, on Tuesday, October 29. to suspend legal tender payment, and. following the example of other cities, emit an issue of clearing house certificates. Accordingly they had printed $100.000 of these certificates in denominations of $1. $2. $5 and $10.
"Conditions which call for the protection of the current resources of western banks are not of home-making," explained the Spokesman-Review. "There never was a time in western history when the people were so prosperous. the burden of debt so light, the supply of money and credit so generous. The banks of many west- ern cities have taken precaution to protect their cash resources from the strong pull exerted by desperate New York bankers. That action, in turn. has seemed to make it advisable for bankers still further west to protect themselves in like manner. Failing to adopt that safeguard, their cash would gradually be drawn from them by banks holding balances against them, while banks indebted to the home banks would refuse to settle their balances in cash. Thus the unprotected banks would soon Jose their cash and hold instead certificates of clearing house associations in distant cities -- sound enough as an investment, but worthless for the immediate needs of real eur- reney."
With admirable spirit the public accepted the situation, and utilized the certifi- cates as a passing makeshift. Business men, big and little, took the improvised eur- rency at par, and were glad to get it : and real estate men advertised their willing- ness to take it in exchange for building lots in their additions.
A convention in Spokane, Sunday, November 10, was attended by the represen- tatives of 161 bankers from all parts of the Inland Empire. After extended dis- cussion resolutions were unanimously adopted approving the plans that had been adopted and affirming that no change was needed.
Early in December the Spokane banks began to retire their certificates. and
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$133,000 of them were burned December 9. The flurry was over; confidence stood unshaken, and Prosperity's chariot rolled serenely on.
Meanwhile railroad building was progressing at many points in the Spokane country. In March F. A. Blackwell, his son R. F. Blackwell, and their associates incorporated the Idaho & Washington Northern Railroad company, put surveyors in the field, and began to acquire right of way for a line that was to connect with various other systems out in the Spokane valley and develop the country between Rathdrum and Newport on the Pend d'Oreille river. Mr. Blackwell had purchased extensive forest tracts around Spirit lake, forty miles northeast of Spokane, and entered vigorously on the work of clearing at the outlet a site for a large and modern sawmill. An adjoining section. bought from Mrs. S. M. Wharton, was cleared and laid out as a modern townsite, and October 3 the spick and span new town of Spirit Lake came into prosperous being. This marked a new departure in methods of building towns in the Inland Empire. The spot selected was in a virgin wilderness. and no roof had ever been erected on the new townsite. Broad streets were graded, miles of cement sidewalks laid, electric light and water plants installed, large pub- lic parks cleared and seeded ; and a few months after the beginning, a beautiful and thoroughly up-to-date little city looked out upon the encircling wilderness. In the meantime Mr. Blackwell drove forward with fine energy the task of railroad con- struction, and by the February following carried on excursion to Newport several hundred representative Spokane business men. This line he subsequently extended down the valley of the Pend d'Oreille to Metaline Falls, near the Canadian border.
This summer the Milwaukee company built vigorously across the Idaho Pan- handle. and the Palouse country forty miles south of Spokane. Work was driven, too, on the Spokane, Seattle & Portland. In September Mr. Strahorn's North Coast company made extensive purchases of Front avenue property.
D. F. Percival. a pioneer of 1872, died at Cheney, January 11. aged sixty-seven. Ile came to the Rock Creek section, then in Stevens county, in 1872; was elected county commissioner, to serve at Colville, in 1871, and served in the territorial legis- lature from 1876 to 1880. He engaged in the banking business at Cheney in 1881, and was there elected mayor for five consecutive terms. He was a citizen of unusual publie spirit and enterprise.
The death of Thomas George Thomson, manager of the Hypotheckbank. occurred October 8. This Holland concern made extensive mortgage loans on eity and coun- try real estate in the Spokane country. After the panic of 1893 it acquired by fore- closure a large part of the improved business property of the town. With the re- turn of better times it gradually disposed of this foreclosed property, and Mr. Thom- son was sent from Holland to manage its affairs in and around Spokane. He quickly won the respect and confidence of all with whom he came in contact.
J. D. Labrie, who died October 11 at Medical Lake, came to Spokane county in 1871 from Douglas county, Oregon, and the next spring located on a homestead a mile north of the present town of Medical Lake. He helped to operate the first sawmill in Spokane, and was Medical Lake's first postmaster.
Perhaps the most picturesque figure about Spokane in the carly '90s was "Rev." Leslie Day, alias Leslie R. Kingsley, who committed suicide at St. Paul in November. 1907. While in Spokane he was successively street preacher. miner, clairvoyant and healer. Leaving San Francisco for San Francisco's good, and on pointed intima-
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tions from the police, he drifted to Spokane and found a fertile field. Masquerading as a minister while here, he not only failed to practice what he preached, but in his Jekyll-Hyde life was as much at home among the vicious element as among hon- est folk. He left Spokane at the time of the Klondyke rush. Day had a checkered career. Was born on a battle field of the Crimean war; was educated for the priesthood in St. Petersburg : became a lieutenant in the Russian army ; wandered to Australia, and thence drifted to San Francisco. He was a man of powerful physique and deep resounding voice.
One of the wildest demonstrations ever witnessed on the streets of Spokane was that on the night of September 7. when a frenzied mob of more than 2,000 people surged around the police station and clamored for the release of Mrs. Ida Crouch Hazlett, a socialist speaker arrested for violating the city ordinance forbidding street speaking within the fire limits. Released on bail. she came out of the station bareheaded and without a jacket. and led a triumphant procession up Howard street to her headquarters in a lodging house.
CHAPTER LXV
ROOT-GORDON SCANDAL AROUSES THE PUBLIC
SINISTER RUMORS DEVELOP INTO OPEN CHARGES-CHIEF JUSTICE HADLEY CALLS FOR BAR ASSOCIATION INQUIRY-JUDGE ROOT RESIGNS-GRAND JURY CALLED-APPEAR- ANCE OF JAMES J. HILL-PROSECUTOR PUGH CHARGES HIM WITH BAD FAITII- GREAT NORTHERN REFUSES TO AID PROSECUTION-GORDON ACQUITTED-PASSING OF SUNDAY SALOON AND BOX-RUSTLING-SPOKANE EQUAL SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION OR- GANIZED-MILES POINDEXTER GOES TO CONGRESS-COSGROVE ELECTED GOVERNOR- JONES DEFEATS ANKENY FOR THE SENATE-NORTHERN PACIFIC'S SCHEME OF GRADE SEPARATION DEFEATED-150,000 CLUB FOSTERS CHILDREN'S HOME.
N THE summer of 1908 a sinister whisper ran over the state that M. J. Gordon, Great Northern attorney at Spokane, was $50,000 to $100,000 short in his accounts with that company. Gordon bad held for five years the high office of justice of the supreme court of Washington, and for three years was chief justice. He had resigned from the supreme bench to take service with the Great Northern. At first, men of cautions mind rejected these ugly rumors as mere fah- rieations of some sensational scandal-monger. But the rumors would not be sileneed, and grew in persistence and ciremstantial detail until they became in No- vember an open secret among the well-informed lawyers of the northwest, and soon found their way into the columns of the public press. I
Rumor added that a part of the alleged shortage had been paid to Judge Mito A. Root of the state supreme court. Chief Justice W. E. Hadley formally requested J. B. Bridges, president of the State Bar association, to investigate these charges of "conduct of a highly criminal nature." and Bridges appointed John HI. Powell, and Harold Preston of Seattle, T. L. Stiles and R. G. Hudson of Tacoma, and H M. Stephens of Spokane a committee to make the investigation.
November 24 Justice Root offered his resignation to the governor. "My relations with Judge Gordon," he affirmed, "will hear the closest investigation, and will re- fleet no more upon me than the indiscretions of friendship. Yet I realize that for a justice of the supreme court there should exist not even an indiscretion, especially as I realize that any reflection upon any member easts a cloud upon the entire court."
These sensational revelations stirred publie sentiment to its depths, and the sen- sation was intensified by newspaper interviews wherein L. C. Gilman, general west- ern counsel for the Great Northern, and W. R. Begg, general solicitor at St. Paul, admitted that a shortage existed in Gordon's accounts.
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Gordon seemed dazed by the weight of his troubles, and personal friends main- tained a close watch to prevent possible suicide. "Gordon," said a Spokane acquaint- ance, "is one of the most remarkable men I have ever seen. He could stay up all night, hire an automobile in the morning, go into the country with a party of friends, sing a few songs, drink more booze, and return to town apparently refreshed and ready for the legal business in which he was interested. On these trips he usually insisted on paying all expenses. He is a good story-teller, a good listener, and one of the best entertainers I ever knew. Apparently he had no sense of the value of money. and I often wondered what would be the finish of the clip at which he was going."
The Bar Association committee conducted investigations at Spokane, Seattle, Tacoma and elsewhere. Root and Gordon came before it at Seattle, and Root denied that he had ever received a dollar improperly from Gordon. In published state- ments Gordon denied that he was short with the Great Northern.
The investigating committee reported in January. 1909. that Judge Root had corresponded with Gordon regarding a money transaction; that Root accepted from the Great Northern, through Gordon, and from other railroads, free transportation; that Root filed as the opinion of the supreme court an almost verbatim draft of an opinion dictated by Gordon as attorney for the Great Northern in the case of Harris against the railroad company.
The committee was unable to obtain any facts to substantiate rumors of the giv- ing out of advance information concerning decisions of the supreme court, or to ob- tain any facts to substantiate rumors of bribery and corruption. The committee held that the conduct of Root in receiving free transportation was highly censureable ; that his conduct in the Harris case was a gross breach of judicial and professional propriety, and showed such a want of appreciation of the duties of a judge of the su- preme court as to unfit him for occupying that position. The report recommended that the State Bar association request the judges of the superior court of Spokane county to call a grand jury to investigate fully the rumors of corruption.
Gordon was arrested on a specific charge of embezzling $9,200 from the Great Northern, and pleaded not guilty in the superior court of Spokane.
A grand jury was called at Spokane, and its investigations were vigorously con- ducted by Prosecuting Attorney Fred. C. Pugh. It returned a number of indict- ments against Gordon, who was arrested in May on additional charges of embezzle- ment.
While passing through Spokane, June 3, President James J. Hill of the Great Northern was served with a subpoena to appear before the grand jury, and went before that body the following day. "I have promised the grand jury that I will do all in my power to see that it gets the papers and doemments which it desires." said Mr. Hill upon leaving the grand jury room. ( Prosecutor Pugh had given him a list of the documents desired.) "I shall write to St. Paul this afternoon, so that a meeting of the board of directors may be held when I arrive." A few days later the board of directors decided not to supply the grand jury with the desired records and documents. "This shows bad faith on the part of James J. Hill." said Mr. Pugh.
Gordon's trial came on in the superior court March 11. but the state's inability to obtain important documentary evidence from the books and files of the Great
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Northern, or to secure the presence as a witness of L. C. Gilman, greatly weakened the case, and Judge Kennan directed the jury to return a verdiet of not guilty."
After an intermittent warfare of nearly twenty years, a slowly awakening pub- lic sentiment triumphed in 1908, over the Sunday saloon and the pioneer type of box-rustling variety theaters. Early in January Mayor Moore's administration warned the saloons that the Sunday closing law would be enforced, and, this warn- ing disregarded, wholesale arrests followed. The liquor dealers appealed to the courts, and failing there, 125 of them forfeited their bonds in the police court in a single day and taeitly agreed to conform to the law. On the night of January 11 the Coeur d'Alene, Comique and O. K. theaters closed their doors. With this disap- pearanee of a frontier type of amusement resorts, Spokane passed forever from a stage that was highly picturesque, but unsuited to an aspiring city of the modern mold, eager to rank as a social, educational and amusement center of the better kind.
Politieally the year brought much of interest. In February was organized the Spokane Equal Suffrage association with Mrs. May Arkwright Hutton as president, Mrs. H. W. Allen first vice-president. Mrs. E. Phyllis Carlton second vice-president, Mrs. Nellie Colburn secretary, Mrs. Jessie S. Emery treasurer, and Mrs. J. G. Cun- ningham musical superintendent. This organization entered on a vigorous but digni- fied and effective crusade for woman suffrage, and by its enthusiasm and intelligent example helped to stimulate the statewide movement which later won a signal success at Olympia and the polls.
Miles Poindexter resigned from the superior bench of Spokane county to make the raee for congress in the Third district, comprising all the counties of eastern Wash- ington excepting Klickitat. Polities took on new interest this year, the people test- ing, for the first time. the new principle of direet primaries. At the primary elec- tions in September Poindexter defeated a field of republican contestants which in- cluded T. D. Rockwell. W. H. Ludden and Harry Rosenhaupt, all of Spokane. Boone of Whitman, and Field of Chelan. For the United States senate Wesley L. Jones of Yakima defeated Senator Levi Ankeny of Walla Walla. For the govern- orship the contest was lively and exciting between Governor A. E. Mead, Ex-Gov- ernor Henry MeBride and S. G. Cosgrove, with Col. W. M. Ridpath of Spokane and Atkinson also in the race. Spokane county went for Poindexter, Jones and Me- Bride-for Poindexter by 2,300 votes, for Jones by more than 4,000, and for Me- Bride by 2,097 votes over Mead, and 2,665 over Cosgrove. In the state a count of the second choice votes gave the republican nomination for governor to Cosgrove.
At the November election the republicans swept state and county. For presi- dent. Taft defeated Bryan in the state by 55,000, in the county by 5,000. Cosgrove was elected governor by about 45.000 majority, but death robbed him of the fruits of his victory. Weakened by exhaustion and disease, he broke down in the cam- paign, and was taken to California for his health. He returned to Olympia for in- auguration, but lacked the strength to take up the duties of the office, and shortly after was removed by death. Lieutenant-Governor M. E. Hay of Spokane there- upon became governor.
In the Third congressional distriet Poindexter defeated William Goodyear, dem- ocrat of Whitman county, by about 12,000 votes.
. In Spokane the republicans carried all the county and legislative offiees, with , the single exception of Lester P. Edge, demoerat for the legislature.
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The Northern Pacific presented a plan of grade separation this year, and that question was threshed out before the council in March. The plans excited a wide- spread protest, from the general public as well as owners of property and leases along the right of way. Objections were directed against the unsightly appearance of the proposed elevated structure, the treatment of intersecting streets, and the plan of readjusting the tracks to warehouses along the right of way. After several weeks of spirited controversy and the presentation of a vast mimber of remonstrances, the railroad company withdrew its plans and stated that, so far as it was concerned, the question of grade separation was a closed incident.
Mysterious and covert buying of Front avenue real estate, long suspected as in the interest of R. E. Strahorn's occult North Coast Railroad company, culminated in July when that company filed for record 111 deeds. representing purchases ag- gregating nearly $1,000,000 and covering an almost continuous strip from the city hall to the western city limits.
At a meeting of the 150,000 club, April 6. President F. W. King. to represent the club, W. S. Rogers for the contractor. and George W. Mackay, for the labor unions, were appointed as a building committee to take charge of construction of the new Children's home. A resolution was adopted thanking Asa V. Bradrick for his admirable and enthusiastic direction of the inspiring campaign to raise the needed fund. A handsome donation by John A. Finch of fourteen lots as a site for the new home, two and a fourth miles northwest of Riverside and Howard. lifted this worthy undertaking out of the realm of uncertainty.
Death claimed two pioneers-Mrs. Louis Ziegler, May 31. a pioneer of 1880, and Frederick Post, who died at Post Falls, August 7, in his eighty-seventh year.
In July the Woman's Club conducted the first Chautauqua in Spokane. The new city market was opened August 22. The North Central high school was built this year. The Orphemm theatrical circuit was extended to Spokane in June.
Big buildings started or completed this year were the Paulsen, $900.000: Spo- kane Dry Goods company. Railroad and Lincoln, $160,000; Kemp & Herbert, Main and Washington. $150.000; Peyton. $175.000, Spokane and Post, and the Federal building, Riverside and Lincoln.
By the accidental discharge of his fowling piece. Allan F. Gill. former city en- gineer and city commissioner. was killed while hunting on the frozen shores of Moses lake, in the Big Bend country.
The new Catholic church of Our Lady of Lourdes was dedicated on Thanksgiv- ing day by Bishop Edward O'Dea.
Bank clearings in 1908 aggregated $308,000,000. an increase of more than $6 .- 000,000. Postoffice receipts increased more than thirteen per cent. the jobbing trade twenty per cent. The manufacturing payroll showed an increase of $500.000. Building permits exceeded those of 1907 by $150.000. a gratifying record when the fact was considered that the 1907 record was rounded out by permits for the Paul- sen and Federal buildings and several other unusually large projects.
CHAPTER LXVI
BILLY SUNDAY'S REVIVAL AND THE UNEMPLOYED
GREATEST RELIGIOUS MEETING IN CITY'S HISTORY-TEMPERANCE WORKERS MARCH ON OLYMPIA-CARING FOR ARMY OF IDLE MEN-PRATT DEFEATS OMO FOR MAYOR- SPOKESMAN-REVIEW CELEBRATES TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY-EXTRAORDINARY RUSH FOR INDIAN LANDS-FRIGHTFUL WRECK ON COEUR D'ALENE ELECTRIC LINE -PAN TAN DISCLOSURES-NATIONAL IRRIGATION CONGRESS-PRESIDENT TAFT VISITS INLAND EMPIRE-CITY'S CLASH WITH THE I. W. W .- YEAR OF FINE GROWTH- GREAT NORTHERN ABSORBS TIIE GRAVES SYSTEM-DEATH OF J. HERMAN BEARE, JUDGE NORMAN BUCK, E. H. JAMIESON AND C. S. VOORHEES.
O N SUNDAY, January 24, 1909, was held the greatest religious meeting in the history of Spokane, when 10,000 men assembled in a huge tented taber- nacle to hear Billy Sunday's indictment of the saloon. Five thousand men outside, clamoring for impossible admittance, nearly precipitated a riot. Local op- tion legislation was pending before the legislature. Under the auspices of the evan- gelical churches of the city. Mr. Sunday had been conducting a memorable series of revival meetings, and had stirred profoundly the religious and moral conscious- ness of the community. Thousands attended his meetings from the surrounding country. At the close of the revival, 5.666 conversion cards had been returned. To impress the legislature, one hundred Spokane citizens chartered a special train and accompanied the revivalist to the state capital, and presented to the Spokane county delegation petitions for local option signed by 8,000 Spokane citizens. Mr. Sunday addressed two great audiences in the Olympia theater. Among the well known citizens who accompanied the evangelist to Olympia were Senator Miles Poindexter. W. H. Ludden, Zach Stewart, J. L. Paine, W. H. Shields, J. C. Barline, M. L. Higley, Rev. H. L. Rasmus. A. V. Bradriek, H. C. Blair, C. H. Weeks, F. E. Elmendorf.
A large influx of unemployed taxed the capacity of the police department this winter, and engaged the attention of the charitably minded. Billy Sunday's big tab- ernaele was opened as a retreat for the homeless. 100 slept there on benehes the first night. 600 the next, and their numbers rapidly grew to 900. to 1,000, to 1,250. Donations from citizens provided food, and nightly after the services were over volunteers remained to feed the homeless, hungry men. Word ran over the surround- ing country, hundreds of miles away, that Spokane had food and shelter for all, and it became necessary for the ministerial association to limit its hospitality to free sleeping shelter for all and breakfast for 100; and a committee asked Police Chief
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Rice to aid in the task of sheltering the wanderers. Chief Rice expressed a readi- ness to take care of 300, but that, he declared. was the limit of the city's capacity. With the return of milder weather came a thinning out of the unemployed.
For the first time the city campaign was conducted under the direct primary law. At the primary election, April 6, J. T. Omo, C. M. Fassett. R. A. Hutchinson and J. Grant Hinkle contested for the republican nomination for mayor, and finished in the order named, Omo leading Fassett by nearly 1,000 votes. In the democratie primaries N. S. Pratt defeated N. J. Laumer, 987 to 147. For comptroller, W. J. Mckean was the republiean nominee. Robert Fairley the democratic; and for treas- urer J. Oscar Peterson, republican, was matehed against MI. H. Eggleston, democrat.
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