The Green Bag Number XXII
Number 10
October, 1910
The Late Solicitor-General Bowers HE bar of the country has lost one of its ablest leaders, and the Supreme Court has been deprived of the services of a judge who would certainly have been eventually appointed to its bench, by the death of Hon. Lloyd Wheaton Bowers, Solicitor-General of
the United States, September 9 at a Boston hotel at which he had stopped
act before the Supreme Court. His death will disturb the calendar of the Supreme Court, at least at the beginning
of the term.
Several of the cases on
which Mr. Bowers was working were set for, argument October 11, or as soon
thereafter as they could be reached. Mr. Bowers was fifty-one years of age and was in the prime of his career. He
en route from Gloucester, Mass. President Taft has said of his college
was a native of Springfield, Mass, and
friend :—
theologian. He was graduated from Yale University in 1879 and from Colum bia Law School in 1882. He began his
His record in the Solicitor-General's office is one that has rarely, if ever, been equaled. He was one of the first half dozen lawyers of the highest ability in this country. It was my purpose to have appointed him a Justice
a descendant of Jonathan Edwards, the
professional career in New York City in the office of Chamberlain, Carter & Horn
blower, and was subsequently a member
of the Supreme Court if opportunity offered. of that firm. Mr. Bowers came to Washington from
Chicago.
There he was the general
counsel of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, receiving a salary in excess of
$30,000 a year, which he surrendered for
$7,000 a year. The President has on sundry occasions remarked that he con sidered one of the most important things done during the first year of his administration to have been to induce Mr. Bowers to take the office of Solicitor
Removing to Minnesota he
formed a partnership with ex-Chief Jus tice Wilson of that state and practised there until 1893, when he removed to Chicago.
Mr. Bowers was twice married.
On
Sept. 7, 1887, he married Miss Louise B. Wilson of Winona, Minn., who died
ten years later. In August, 1906, he married Miss Charlotte Josephine Lewis, who survives him.
In bearing and manner Mr. Bowers
most orderly legal mind of any man he had ever known. Mr. Bowers attracted national atten tion last March when he defended the
was a cultivated gentleman of the Taft type. His tastes were intellectual, his industry to a peculiar degree unflagging, . ‘ and his life earnest. Having had twenty five years’ legal experience in Minnesota
constitutionality of the corporation tax provisions of the Payne-Aldrich tarifi
and Illinois, he was essentially a Western man.
General, and that Mr. Bowers had the
