100 years ago in the Poindexter column: The Spokane senator’s wife controversially advised Congress members not to ‘work too hard for constituents’

Elizabeth Gale Poindexter, wife of former U.S. Senator Miles Poindexter of Spokane, served up this unexpected bit of advice for new Congress members: “Don’t work too hard for your constituents!”

Poindexter, in her latest syndicated column, wrote that it was a well-known oddity in Washington DC that doing a favor for a constituent often had an unintended effect. Instead of creating a new supporter, it created a new enemy. She said it had happened to her husband on occasion, when he pushed through a bill that the constituent wanted – and then the man turned out to be one of the most “active and virulent opponents of the senator when he came up for reelection.”

Why? She could only cite “curiosities of political psychology.”

From the hospital beat: Hundreds of people showed up for the dedication of a new wing at Sacred Heart Hospital, which would serve as the residence hall for the nurses in training and the sisters of the order.

One speaker, a Catholic priest, said that when the new hospital was built, “many people thought it was a white elephant, that it was impossible to fill such a building.” Instead, the hospital had already outgrown its space.

From the Prohibition beat: An Oklahoma lecturer told a large crowd at Tekoa’s Christian Church that “every bootlegger and brewer in America is an outlaw, and should have their citizenship revoked.”

He said the current drive to permit low-alcohol beer (2.75 percent) was simply a ruse to get people to “form the habit.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1989: Roughly 2,000 students begin hunger strike in Tiananmen Square, China.