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

542 SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
by E. H. Phelps and H. H. Sanderson, and a city edition was started
a few months later. The Phelps Publishing Company was organ-
ized in 1880, and the "Farm and Home," an agricultural paper,
was started about the same time. Both this paper and the " Home-
stead " have proved great financial successes.
E. and C. J. Bellamy started the " Daily News " in 1880, and the
latter subsequently secured his brother's interest. Three years later
the daily "Democrat" was started by a company, with Lawson
Sibley as president, but it was short-lived. In 1878 Edward Merriam
started a magazine in Springfield called the " Sunday Afternoon,"
Rev. Washington Gladden, editor. It had a short and brilliant
career.
There is one man who for over thirty years was an essential
part of Springfield, but who, from the nature of the case, can command
but comparatively small space in this history. The thought
of Samuel Bowles was the thought of thousands of men at each break-
fast table, and the irritation of other thousands. He was a politician
and the foe of politicians ; he was a man of deep religious percep-
tions and a frequent combatant of religionists ; his literature was
the record of the hour, and his rhetoric the elegance of exactness and
terse detail ; his phrases were modelled by the exigencies of rapid
preparation and a busy constituency. He was a lover of good men
and the companion of men of action, but an incorrigible belligerent
when the judgment or character of friend or foe fell below his stand-
ard. Party ties were as nothing, neighborly feeling was as nothing,
when battling for a public policy or prhiciple. A member of the
Cobden Club, he argued for a graduated protective tariff ; a charter
member of the republican party, he struck that organization a full
blow in the face when its standard fell below his. He grew and
broadened and mellowed with each experience in life. Brilliant
and aggressive in his youth, stern and cosmopolitan in middle life, he
was fast maturing to one of the most admirable characters of his
day, when death deprived him of an age of distinction and wisdom