Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

An angry Spokane judge delivered a stern and impassioned lecture about a growing menace in Spokane: packs of boys threatening and harassing innocent people.

Judge George W. Stocker was holding an arraignment hearing for John R. Sallee, 20, charged with assault with a deadly weapon. A pack of boys had been attacking Sallee’s 15-year-old brother and had driven him into his home on East Sharp Avenue. The older Sallee went outside and fired off a shot, hitting a 15-year-old boy but not causing serious injuries.

The judge arraigned Sallee but was angriest at the pack of boys for inciting the problem in the first place.

“This whole bunch of boys ought to be arrested and prosecuted,” said the judge. “If a man is not safe in his own home, it’s a sad state of affairs … . I’ve had just such a bunch come around my house and I know what it is like.”

From the marriage beat: Harry Yabuki, 23, and Miss Selvester Griffith, 20, breathed a sigh of relief at the Spokane County auditor’s office. They were applying for a marriage license and were informed that “there was nothing in the statutes of Washington to debar their marriage.”

He was a Japanese cook, and she was a white girl. They had previously attempted to get a license in a different, unnamed state and had been turned away.