100 years ago in Spokane: Veterans, city celebrate one-year anniverary of end of World War I

Spokane’s “doughboys” (soldiers) and “gobs” (sailors) turned out en masse to celebrate the Armistice Day, now called Veterans Day.

At least 1,500 sped through Spokane’s downtown “with guns and other noise-making rackets,” celebrating a year of peace.

“The service men are bubbling over with enthusiasm,” said Henry A. Wise, of the local American Legion. “Nearly all who were able to obtain uniforms were in them this morning.”

The Spokane Daily Chronicle said that the city’s former service members “today awoke to the fact that a year ago they swore they would never be unmindful of the happiest day of their lives.”

Wise estimates that at least 2,500 uniformed men would turn out for the big parade later in the afternoon, along with a number of former service members in civilian clothes.

They weren’t only World War I veterans. About 50 Civil War veterans were ready to march at the head of the parade.

From the school beat: A member of the Spokane School Board went on record as wholeheartedly in support of an upcoming ballot measure to raise the pay of Spokane teachers.

John G. La Rue said he was “unalterably convinced that Spokane must raise the pay of its teachers or stop trying to educate its children.”

“How am I going to get teachers to come here and work for nothing when they can make a living elsewhere?” he asked.

He said the rest of the board was also in favor of increasing the pay, but “an unfortunate state law ties its hands.”