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Show Samuel Bowles as Editor of the Spring field "Republican." From George S. Merriam's "Study in Independent Journalism" in the October Octo-ber Century, we quote the following : "The faculty in which he first showed eminence was skill in gathering news. Said Mr. Bryan, who was added to the paper's force in 1852 : 'He and I would go into a little restaurant on Sanford street, and one and another would drop in and exchange a few words, and while we were eating our lunch he would pick up half a column of news.' Said a friend in a neighboring town : 'I would meet him on the street, we would chat-a few minutes about the events of the day, and next morning I would find in the paper everything I had told him.' In the political politi-cal conventions which he attended and reported, he was in his 'native element. He button-holed everybody, and offended nobody ; found out the designs of every clique, the doings of every secret caucus, got at the plans of the leaders, the temper tem-per of the crowd, sensed the whole situation; situa-tion; and the next morning's Republican gave a better idea of the convention to those who had stayed at home than many of its participants had gained. These reporting re-porting expeditions were full of education to him. His mode of growth was by absorption.' Other people were to him sponges out of which he deftly squeezed whatever knowledge they could yield. "It was' commonly said that to seek redress from the Republican did more harm than good. This trait was partly due to deliberate unwillingness to weaken the paper's authority by admission of error. But it was probably more due to a personal idiosyncrasy. In many ways a most generous man, Mr. Bowles always hated to admit that he had been in the wron3. Sometimes he did it not often in private life ; but in his paper never, when he could help it. We sometimes discussed this,', said Dr. Holland, 'and once he said: "I sympathize with the Boston editor, to whom a man came with the complaint, 'Your paper says that I hanged hang-ed myself, and I want you to take it back.' No,' said the editor, 'we're not in the habit of doing that, but we will say that the rope broke and you escaped!'"' es-caped!'"' ' "But it must be said that this fault lies at the door of a good many papers besides the Republican. It is a characteristic sin of journalism one of the vices of irresponsible irre-sponsible power." |