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The Springfield Republican is a newspaper in Springfield, Massachusetts USA. During the mid-19th century, it typified the highest quality of journalism.
Beginning
Established by Samuel Bowles in 1824 as a country weekly, it was converted into a daily in 1844. From the beginning it was a clean, well written, honest, independent, and conservative paper that reported all of the happenings of its own vicinity, with brief mention of the gist of important events generally. As rapidly as possible its news-gathering was extended until within a few years its columns contained departments of items from every town and hamlet along the Connecticut valley, as well as from Springfield.
Politics
Bowles believed that the newspaper should be a power in the moral, religious, and literary, as well as the political life of the community, and he tried to make his paper fulfill those functions, not for the world at large but for the people of western Massachusetts. With the aid of J. G. Holland and others who joined the staff the paper attained excellent literary quality and a high moral tone. Probably its success rested most of all upon its political discussions. The excellence of its short, crisp, pithy editorial paragraphs and longer discussions, free from pedantry and heaviness, based always on fundamental ideas and principles, made the Republican widely known and respected. Its opinions soon reached all New England, and after the formation of the Republican party they extended far beyond the limits of any section.
But in spite of the extent of its influence, the Republican held steadily to its purpose as a provincial newspaper; it told all the news, gave all sides a fair hearing, preserved its self-respect and independence, frowned on all "isms," and presented invariably the personal opinions of its editor, whom all its readers knew.
During the controversies affecting slavery and resulting in the American Civil War, Bowles supported, in general, the Whig and Republican parties, but in the period of Reconstruction under President Grant, his paper represented anti-administration or Liberal Republican opinions, while in the disputed election of 1876 it favored the claims of Tilden, and subsequently became independent in politics.
Other
During Bowles' lifetime, and subsequently, the Republican office was a sort of school for young journalists, especially in the matter of pungency and conciseness of style, one of his maxims being: "put it all in the first paragraph".
Bowles was an acquaintance of Emily Dickinson, and he published a handful of the very few poems by the poet printed in her lifetime, including "A narrow fellow in the grass" and "Safe in their alabaster chambers."
Bowles was succeeded as publisher and editor-in-chief of the Republican by his son Samuel Bowles (b. 1851).
Today
The paper closed after a long strike in 1947 but has since been restarted. Wayne E. Phaneuf is currently the executive editor of the paper. Former executive editor Larry McDermott is currently the newspaper's publisher.
External link
References
- George S. Merriam, Life and Times of Samuel Bowles V. 1 (1885)
- Richard Hooker, The Story of an Independent Newspaper (1924)
- John J. Scanlon, The Passing of the Springfield Republican (1950)
- Parts of this article come from Cambridge History of English and American Literature (1921) in the public domain.
- Parts of this article incorporate text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition}| article }|"}"}|}}}| by }}}}}, a publication now in the public domain.1911 Britannica
"Springfield Republican"