This day in history: Candidate for Spokane police commissioner called for relaxed enforcement of ‘foolish’ Prohibition laws; Gonzaga started Big Sky season against UI

From 1975: The Gonzaga University basketball team was in the Big Sky Conference, and was set to open its conference season against the University of Idaho.

Yet the status of Gonzaga basketball in 1975 was not even close to the juggernaut it would become.

The Zags were coming into conference play with a 4-5 record. Coach Adrian Buonocristiani said their losses were due to an inability to protect the ball and weak post defense.

Spokesman-Review sports editor Harry Missildine summed up the situation like this: “Neither Idaho or Gonzaga is a big basketball team by contemporary measurements, nor particularly ‘physical,’ but both have speed, the ability to play in varied tempos, and that bottom line basketball requirement, shooting.”

From 1925: A citywide election was planned in March, and it would determine whether Spokane would be an “open” or “closed” town.

That’s because Adolph Danielson, the local head of the Federal Prohibition Repeal Association, was running against the city’s current commissioner of public safety, Maurice Smith.

Danielson called Prohibition a “foolish law,” and that Smith’s commitment to enforcing the law was putting a damper on Spokane’s prosperity. He believed Spokane wanted “a less bull-headed man in the position of police commissioner.”

Smith said his job was simply to enforce the law, and he intended to keep doing it. Any prosperity “based on vice” would be short-lived and short-sighted.

“Families of Spokane want decent surroundings, and in so far as I am able to keep the city clean, I propose to do so,” said Smith.

He was aware that Danielson had garnered endorsements from a number of prominent business people.

“Perhaps I have made a political mistake in taking my oath of office seriously,” he added.