Denver Ordinance Spurs REALTOR® Riot
For at least ten minutes it seemed that the 1920 banquet of the Denver Realty Exchange would warrant the front page of The Rocky Mountain News. When Henry Walker demanded the floor to argue in favor of licensing for REALTORS®, a riot ensued. Dignified men yelled "Put him out," Bolsheviki" and "Reds in our midst!"
REALTOR® George Loomis called the Denver City Council, which had supposedly passed an ordinance requiring a $500 license fee, a "hidebound bunch of Bolsheviks." Tables were overturned. Water, bananas and biscuits were thrown. To restore order, board President Harry W. Newcomb hammered his gavel so hard that he fainted.
According to the Rocky Mountain News, men watched with "tense, white faces" and "several sneaked toward the door, fearing actual violence." Then somebody snickered, and "the cat was out of the bag." Alas, the demonstration was a hoax!
The board went on to celebrate its thirteenth annual banquet and honor its outgoing President. "If all of Denver's citizenship were made up of men like those of the Real Estate Exchange," the impressed News reported, "there would be something doing in Denver."
