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

596 SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
You do not depend on the favor of Presidents. You can afford to laugh at a
veto. The euerg\- and enterprise which have made Springfield what she is
to-day, a monument of New England prosperity and an embodiment of the New
England idea, will carry her on unchecked by accidents of fortune to new
achievements and new glories in the future, and the congratulations and good
wishes of the whole people of the Commonwealth Avill attend her onward march.
Mr. Lathrop. — The Press. — To respond to this toast, I am pleased to pre-
sent a gentlemen who, by inheritance and by instinct, by education and accom-
plishment, most fitly illustrates and localizes this sentiment, — Mr. Samuel
Bowles.
Mr. Bowles. —- 3Ir. Toast-inaster and Gentlemen, — For three generations my
family have been engaged in the newspaper business in Springfield, and there
appears to be some danger that a representative of the fourth generation may
grow ujj to pursue the same calling. It has been one of the unwritten but
respected rules of the house never t(^ make a public speech. I felt, therefore,
that I was running the risk of a hostile encounter with the shades of my an-
cestors in accepting the invitation of the banquet committee to respond to
tlie present toast this evening. But the call so stirred my pride in my heritage
and my profession, that 1 could not decline it.
After tlie eloquent exaltation of the press by your accomplished toast-master,
little remains to be said in its behalf. The history of the press in Springfield,
it may be claimed, without boasting, is a highly honorable one ; and the news-
papers of the town have at least ilone their share in promoting its material
growth and preserving its moral health. The marvellous development in the
character and functions of our local journals, that has taken place witliin the
century that compasses their history, has been confined almost entirely to
the last fifty years, the period during Avhich the telegraph, the railroad, and
the steamship have broken down the barriers tliat formerly separated towns and
States and continents, and brought every part of the civilized world into quick
communication with every other part. During this time, too, there has gone on
a wonderful improvement in printing machinery, enabling us now to circulate
the news of the day with a completeness and promptitude that would have been
considered magical fiftj^ years ago. The celebration of the two hundredth anni-
versary of the settlement of Springfield occurred on a Wednesday. On the
following Saturday the local papers appeared with reports of the event, filling
only three or four columns of space, and consisting largely of the letters from
distinguished men read at the public dinner, and the toasts that were offered.