Lloyd Wheaton Bowers was born on March 9, 1859, at Springfield, Massachusetts. He was the son of Samuel Dwight and Martha Wheaton (Dowd) Bowers. On both sides, his ancestors were Puritans who had settled in New England more than two centuries before his birth.
Lloyd's family removed in his infancy to Brooklyn, New York, and later to Elizabeth, New Jersey, and there he was prepared for college by a private tutor. Entering Yale in 1875, he was graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1879.
His standing had been but once equaled. For one year he remained as a graduate student, then traveled in Europe, and, despite a tempting offer of a teaching position at Yale, turned to the profession of the law. He was graduated from the Columbia Law School, admitted to the New York bar, and received a clerkship in a leading firm of New York City in 1882.
In 1883, Bowers became managing clerk, and in January 1884 a member of the firm. Ill health, however, compelled him to rest, and as a result of a summer's travel in the Northwest, he moved in October 1884 to Winona, Minnesota, where he formed a partnership with Thomas Wilson, former chief justice of the state supreme court. Here he practiced until 1893.
He then became the general counsel of the Chicago & North Western Railway Company, one of the great railway systems of the country, and in this office, he served until 1909 when he was appointed by President Taft, an intimate friend since college days, solicitor-general of the United States. Little more than a year was given him to occupy this position of honor and responsibility.
Incidentally to this development litigation arose involving federal control of the railroads under the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, the powers of the states to control intrastate commerce and to tax corporations, and the application of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 which involved social and political issues of vast importance.
It is well known that only his death prevented his nomination by President Taft for appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Bower's chief achievement was in becoming the general counsel of the Chicago & North Western Railway Company, one of the great railway systems of the country. Appointed by President Taft, he served in this office until 1909. The years of Bowers's work with the North Western were during a period of extraordinary industrial development. Bowers played a conspicuous part in the federal control of the railroads under the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. With juries, he was far from successful, but he was exceedingly strong in his grasp of the legal factors in a case and was effective with a court. His success in winning cases for the government during his brief service as solicitor-general was phenomenal.
Bowers was regarded by his railroad associates as no mere partisan, but on the contrary as mindful of the railroads' duties as quasi-public corporations; and according to an intimate associate he found especial happiness, as solicitor-general, in the fact that he could act solely as lawyer, rather than counsel, and for the whole country rather than for a special interest.
Although he published nothing and was in that sense wholly absorbed in the law, he retained throughout life a catholicity of intellectual interests, particularly in literature.
Of sturdy frame, with dark seamed face and brilliant eyes under beetling brows, Lloyd Bowers was a striking figure. In forensic argument, he was not of the calm and calculating type, though resourceful, but impetuous and masterful in manner. Notwithstanding some reserve, his charm of manner, marked by kindly sympathy, easily won friends, whom he held by the attractions of a broad and generous nature.
Bowers married twice; first, on September 7, 1887, Louisa Bennett Wilson of Winona, Minnesota, who died on December 20, 1897; and second, in 1906, Charlotte Josephine Lewis of Detroit, who survived him.
19 August 1825 - 5 October 1899
11 May 1834 - 17 June 1909
29 August 1869 - 15 June 1870
1 May 1865 - 17 December 1897
17 December 1889 - 2 October 1958
chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court
