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

544 SPRINGFIELD, 1G36-2SSG.
occasion to write a fine letter on journalistic ethics, which contained
this passage : " My own observation is that the press rarely does in-
justice to a thoroughly honest man or cause. It may be deceived
with regard to a private individual, and misrepresent him for a time,
but with reference to public men and measures its knowledge is more
intimate and complete than that of any other agency possibly can be ;
and I know that it withholds unjustly to the public one hundred
times when it speaks wrongly once of the individual."
After the death of the great journalist, his sou, Samuel Bowles,
became editor and publisher of the " Springfield Republican." For
several years, owing to the precarious health of his father, he had
been called upon to follow very closely the course of public events,
and to inspect his father's Avide political correspondence, and this,
with his business aptitude and industry, gave him a good equipment
for his heavy responsibilities. After a short interregnum the edi-
torial force of the " Republican " was organized, with Solomon Bulk-
ley Griffin as managing editor, and the late Wilmot L. Warren and
Charles Goodrich Whiting as his two important assistants in the
fields of finance and literature. All three had won their spurs under
the exacting conditions and trying ordeal of Mr. Bowles's supervision,
and were uotabl^^ well equipped to carry on the great work given the
" Republican " to do.
The churches of Springfield enjoyed a steady growth during this
period, quite up to the material increase of the community. There
was but one incident that commands special attention, and that
was the refusal of a Congregational council to install Rev. James
F. Merriani over the Indian Orchard Church, November 7, 1877.
A question of orthodoxy was involved. Mr. Merriam, in his decla-
ration of faith, had said: "In regard to the matter of the eternal
punishment of those impenitent at death, I believe the Bible
does not teach it ; nor do I believe it teaches the contrary." The
Indian Orchard affair gave rise to a long newspaper discussion that
spread all over the country, and now forms a chapter of the religious