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

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SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886. 543
and usefulness. But his life can best be written as George S. Mer-
has written it, — in the setting of his country's history.
For many years there was not a session of the Legislature or of
Congress that was a stranger to the figure of Samuel Bowles. The
corridor, the club, the banquet board, the conference-room, in fact, the
resorts of public men, were his resorts ; he aided in planning cam-
paigns, forming tickets or public measures, and carried his sharp
lauce so far to the fore-front that he was sometimes unhorsed, like other
bold riders. " This was not alway the case," he said, when subscrib-
ers complained because republican postmasters would not deliver
the "Republican" after it had come out for Horace Greeley for
President. " But the paper will recover its influence," he added ; and
it did.
A more dramatic discomfiture, but one challenging deep sympathy,
he had experienced some years before. It was in December, 1868,
while Mr. Bowles was talking with Murat Halstead of the " Cincin-
nati Commercial," at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, that an officer
arrested him and hurried him off with unnecessary rudeness to Ludlow-street
Jail. Many prominent men, like Chester A. Arthur, Hugh
Hastings, and others, were refused admission to the jail, and the
sheriff carried out the plan of the journalist's enemies by obstructing
all efforts for securing his release on bail that night. This was the
hour of Jim Fisk's triumph. He had jailed a New England editor, but
at 11 o'clock next morning Mr. Bowles regained his liberty. A wide
newspaper and lawyer's discussion followed this extraordinary episode.
Mr. Bowles, by his brave course in attacking Fisk, and continuing
to attack him, had earned the right to say editorially : " AVe find
some consolation, however, in the aroused spirit of the press and
people, which gives promise of greater courage and foresight here-
after in counteracting the selfish schemes of adventurers and dema-
gogues." Over fifty of the foremost citizens of Boston sent a for-
mal request to Mr. Bowles for his presence at a dinner in his honor.
Mr. Bowles followed his natural instinct and declined ; but
he took