Springfield 1636-1886, History of Town and City, by Mason A. Green ...

464 SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
hountlie distinction of sharing with Oliver B. Morris the honor of loy-
alty to the public schools. Ten years before, when S. S. Green, the
first school superintendent in Massachusetts, had presided over the
Springfield schools for one year and nine months, Calhoun had stood
up in the town-meeting and faced the clamoring tax-payers, who were
willing to bank up on their children's ignorance in order to pocket a
few shillings tax money. Calhoun lost in the fight, and Green was
allowed to go and make for himself a reputation as an educator in
Rhode Island.
Erasmus D. Beach, whose prominence in the camp of the democracy
we have noticed, was also making his mark at the bar. Mr. Beach
was a man of fine presence, — genial, condescending, courtly, and
gracious. He was a master of the arts of persuasion, receiving a
client with great suavity and consideration ; and his power with the
jury was a mystery which much better lawyers never fully compre-
hended. His practice was large, and his office was always well
patronized by all classes of litigants. He would listen to the state-
ment of a case with the greatest deference, and would make a client
almost feel that it was a positive delight to go to law with such an
advocate to represent his interests. If a man came to him with a com-
plicated case he would hear him through, and with a wave of the
hand, or a smile of relief, he would give the hnpression that, after all,
the case was not important enough for him to conduct, and that his
partner — Gillett, or Bates, or Bond, or Stearns — could give the
counsel required as well as more able jurists. As a diplomat of the
office, E. D. Beach never had an equal at the Hampden bar ; but he
knew his limitations thoroughly enough not to appear before a bench
of Supreme Court judges. He never was without a strong man as
partner, to aid in conducting his large practice. These partners,
while wondering at his extended practice, had the deepest respect for
him. " Is His Serene Highness in? " William G. Bates would ask in
the morning, and this plausible sereneness he never lost nor outgrew.
When Mr. Beach bought the " Hampden "Whig," in 1835, he moved