"Yes, sir."

"That is something," he went on.

begin work at once?"

"Can you

"No, sir," replied the culprit with some heat. By this time the scowl had disappeared and there was something sunshiny about the eyes of the great man that made the boy feel easier in spirit.

"Can you come next Wednesday?"

"Yes, sir," was the ready and smiling response. So ended the young man's dream of enjoying more of the delights of baseball, and he found himself facing, with full seriousness now, the stern realities of a life that was to be absorbed by this masterful man, a great newspaper, and a greater calling, to which he had felt drawn from boyhood. He had contributed local news and descriptive letters to the Pittsfield Eagle, the North Adams Transcript, the Lee Gleaner, the Troy Times and the New York Globe. His only pay had been the regular receipt of some of these publications, and that, to his unsophisticated judgment, appeared large reward.

Now he was destined to begin real newspaper work at an initial salary of twenty-five dollars per month, - surely princely pay to one who had not before earned regular money by his own efforts. But above all, here was the coveted start. Let it be added that never thereafter was a raise of pay asked for. As the newcomer grew in his work the Bowleses, father and son, recognized it with an enlarged pay envelope up to the limit fixed for the editorial department.

II

THE ADVANTAGES OF ENVIRONMENT

IN nothing does the writer account his life more fortunate than in this engagement to enter journalism by way of the Springfield Republican. He was, for one thing, to live in an exceptionally desirable community, and to have a share in suburban, as well as urban life. I do not know of another region offering choicer attractions in scenery and people.

County seats have an advantage over other towns and cities, and nowhere has this meant more than in Massachusetts. Springfield, Northampton, Greenfield, Lenox and Pittsfield, in the western counties of the State, were given not only distinction by the presence of the courts, but the intellectual stimulus which court sittings brought early established a status above that of neighboring communities. This counted for much in the years before the advent of more rapid transportation. Judges made long tarries, and with the lawyers entered into the local life to an extent no longer possible.

In that unhurried time the adjustment of values may have been saner, as it surely was more pervadingly sound. Larger recognition was given to the cultivated side of life, and those who paid heed to the amenities were highly regarded. So came

a recognized aristocracy of education, brains and social accomplishment.

But the character early stamped upon Springfield was in process of change. The time when parsons, judges, lawyers and professional men were most looked up to in the community was passing, or had gone. The era of railroads had affected conditions in many ways, and the inhabitants of a prosperous city no longer, as in the olden time, drew their prosperity mainly from the fertile meadows of the Connecticut valley immediately adjacent to Springfield, or further removed up and down the river. Railroading and manufacturing claimed an increasing measure of attention, and were growingly productive sources of activity, income and power. In mercantile business the city was reaching out for the trade of the region. Thus my association with Springfield began during a most interesting and critical phase of its transition, when wise or unwise direction was to determine how far old attractions and virtues were to be retained.

To the outside world Springfield was most widely known on the material side through the United States Armory, and the Smith and Wesson revolver; as it was on the intellectual side as the home of Webster's Dictionary and of the Republican. The armorers had long been esteemed a remarkably intelligent group of mechanics, who had pride in their work, and thought for themselves. But they were no longer alone in this. The men who made revolvers ranked in quality with those who turned out rifles, and a varied line of manufacturing had come to

diversify the city's industries. Thereby the base of its business life was broadened and strengthened.

Fortunately, not to this day has the city developed any one manufacturing interest so dominant as to constitute anything like its overshadowing asset, thereby to become a crushing liability in periods of financial distress. Bad times had not oppressed us to the extent operative in other places not having a many-sided commercial activity comparable with

ours.

There was a more intimate relationship between the inhabitants of that small Springfield than has been possible since. Men and women knew each other more generally, by sight if not through social contact. There was social differentiation, but awe of the "old families" was being dissipated as it became manifest that dry rot was taking hold of many family trees that once flourished and towered, but were exhibiting in their branches and trunks unlovely signs of decay. Self-centered and resourceful men who had not come of socially elect families, or had entered from the outside, mutually indifferent to local pretensions, were coming to the front, with many more to follow them. Those new to the city saw things that were less evident to citizens who had grown up in it. But residents of Maple Street and vicinity, typical leaders of an exclusive social life, were obliged to take note of new elements that were advancing in a way to imperil an ancient and cherished supremacy.

There was something amusingly - or pathetically according to the point of view-provincial, about

factors in the old order, hitherto so sure of itself, but now lacking in perspective and grasp of present potentialities. Women were slower to see what was coming than the men, as old Springfield was pushed into the background and the way opened for a larger and more democratic, if it may be somewhat less cultivated, social life, where not much trace was to be left of distinctions once sharply existent.

There was charm and high satisfaction to be found in the best life of old New England, both in its outstanding personalities and in the atmosphere it had created in such a place as Springfield. One loves to recall the departed leadership of strong men and women once important in this city. Individualism certainly flourished more abundantly when the conditions of living were simpler, and when there was less of organization and of tiresomely mechanical efficiency in business and living. Small need was there at the time of which we write to consider the now vastly complicated relationship between capital and labor.

But change is the ever-commanding element in human experience, and we are forced to witness it, to move with it, whether with good grace or ill. It was a most attractive Springfield to which one's whole-hearted allegiance could be given, but one that was on the threshold of many overturnings of what had been, as growth in business brought increasing changes in the composition of our population.

Very gratifying is it that in honest government, in civic pride and watchfulness, the loss during the pro