100 years ago in Spokane: Editors call on city to take swifter action to stop spread of flu

The Spokane Daily Chronicle’s editorial page urged city officials to take immediate steps to stop the burgeoning flu epidemic.

“Fighting the influenza is no child’s game,” said an editorial. “It should not be played as children play.”

The editors charged that only “scattered and feeble efforts” had been made so far.

“The city health department need not fear that citizens will fail to uphold it in any sane steps it deems necessary to stay the epidemic. Measures which would stop the spread now may be entirely too feeble if delayed a few more days. Even by the cold calculation of dollars and dimes, it is better to go halfway now and end the scourge quickly than to extend its time for an extra week and then be forced to issue closing orders that will go all the way.”

The paper did not specify any particular steps, but it was clearly making references to the ban on all public gatherings which shut down schools, churches and businesses for weeks in the city in 1919.

The editors had a terse reply to people who were complaining that “business was at stake.”

“Certainly,” said the editors. “So are human lives.”

The day’s reports from the city health department were mixed. New cases were slightly down, but deaths – five – were up. The fatalities included a 2-month-old and a 74-year-old.

The number of students absent from Spokane schools rocketed to 5,216.