Springfield Republican

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The Springfield Republican is a newspaper based in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1 Beginning
2 Politics
3 Other
4 Today
5 See also
6 External link
7 References

[edit] Beginning

Established by Samuel Bowles in 1824 as a country weekly, it was converted into a daily in 1844. From the beginning it had a focus on local news. 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.

[edit] 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. With the aid of J. G. Holland and others who joined the staff the paper attained excellent literary quality and a high moral tone. Its opinions soon reached all New England, and after the formation of the Republican party they extended far beyond the limits of any section.

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.

[edit] 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).

[edit] 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. The paper has come under criticism in recent decades for serving as an apologist for Springfield's corrupt political machine.