100 years ago in Spokane: The public safety commissioner explained Prohibition enforcement in city

Maurice Smith, Spokane’s commissioner of public safety, made a few revealing remarks about the city’s Prohibition enforcement situation.

A minister asked if there was much liquor in Spokane.

“Oh! My good man,” said Smith. “There’s lots of liquor in Spokane. I think the caravan intercepted recently in Okanogan was probably headed for Spokane. The man who is able to buy this bonded liquor doesn’t tell us about it.”

Another man asked if strict enforcement in Spokane “hurts business.”

“I don’t know whether it hurts business or not. Maybe it does. I am sworn to enforce the law. I’m trying to keep the place clean so your children can keep clean if they want to. I have been in Alaska and other places where the towns ran wide open.”

When asked about the numerous personnel changes in the dry squad, Smith had an answer that probably raised a few eyebrows.

“If we feel that a man is not the proper man for the place, we get rid of him,” said Smith. “It has been my pleasure during the last year to get rid of half-a-dozen policemen who I knew were not fit to be policemen.”

Some loggers complained that they were unfairly targeted for booze enforcement. Smith replied that they never make an inquiry into a man’s family or vocation. He said one “random group of drunks,” recently arrested, contained one logger, one engineer, one soldier and one farmer.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1936: Edward VIII announces in a radio broadcast that he is abdicating the British throne to marry Wallis Simpson.