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 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