Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Nearly all of Spokane’s churches joined wholeheartedly in observing a “day of prayer for peace,” as proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson.

Most of the city’s preachers delivered sermons on the subject.

“Of the 1,600,000,000 human beings on earth, 800,000,000 are engaged in deadly conflict,” said the Rev. S. Willis McFadden of the First Presbyterian Church. “… (This) is a return to the barbarism of the Middle Ages. Well has it been called a war of princes and their chancellors. The people obeyed whether they approved the decision or not.”

The Rev. W.A.A. Shipaway of St. Matthew’s Episcopal said that “during the last few weeks, more dead soldier boys have been found on the field of battle than there were people in the world at the time of the flood.”

At the Centenary Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Conrad Bluhm thundered, “The very millions now in the rank and file deplore this legalized assassination. ‘War is hell,’ but we are now forced to say ‘hell is a business’ for which the war traders are responsible. The making of tools of destruction must not be left to private exploitation.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1953: Earl Warren was sworn in as the 14th chief justice of the United States, succeeding Fred M. Vinson.