50 years ago in Expo history: Long before his downfall, Bill Cosby brought the laughs to the fair with his signature brand of wholesome observational humor

Bill Cosby had the Expo ’74 audience laughing, smiling and reflecting on “all the incidents from their own lives they had just seen replayed” in Cosby’s monologue at the Opera House.

This was, of course, decades before the word “scandal” had been associated with Cosby. He was one of the best-loved comedians in the world, and the crowd was on his side.

The Spokane Daily Chronicle’s critic said Cosby was the “medium through which a laugh-weary audience saw themselves and their lives in the humorous light that only Cosby can shed on the mundane facts of everyday life.”

The S-R reviewer quoted Cosby as saying, “Grandparents will give you whatever you want, but you have to have patience. Before they give you the money, they have to tell you how much it was worth in their days.”

From 100 years ago: Spokane’s Good Government League did not back, or approve of, a statewide initiative to ban all private and parochial schools in the grammar (elementary) grades.

The bill was backed by the Ku Klux Klan and was aimed primarily at shutting down Catholic schools.

Apparently, a Klan-backed group with the words “Good Government” in its name had filed the initiative, and this was causing some people to think that it was backed by the Spokane organization.

The head of Spokane’s Good Government League said that her organization was not at all interested in “the stirring up of partisan or religious strife.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1789: James Madison introduces a proposed Bill of Rights.