Ames was elected by a handsome plurality; and it is not too much to say that by his courteous official demeanor towards his Excellency, Governor Butler, during the somewhat phenomenal political year of 1883, coupled with his firmness and good judgment in opposing the more objectionable schemes of that official, he contributed much to the restoration of the Republican party to power at the ensuing State election. He was re-elected in 1883, and again in 1884, and has now entered upon his third term of service. His political, like his business life, has been characterized by a straightforward honesty of purpose, by the strictest integrity, and by an energetic, able, and faithful performance of trusts accepted. Mr. Ames is the possesor of large wealth, but he has most conclusively proven that such possession is in no sense a bar to a faithful and efficient service of his fellow citizens in positions of trust and honor. His rare executive ability has been of good service to the Commonwealth, in whose affairs he has exercised the same good judgment and marked executive ability, as in his own. It is, perhaps, as a financier that Oliver Ames has won his widest reputation. Upon the death of his father the management of the vast enterprises which the later had controlled, suddenly devolved upon him. The greatness of the man showed itself in that he found himself equal to the emergency. The Oakes Ames estate was, at the time he took upon his shoulders its settlement, not only one in which immense and diversified interests were involved, scattered throughout different states of the Union, but it was also burdened with obligations to the extent of eight millions of dollars. The times were most unpropitious, the country being just on the eve of a great financial panic when immense properties were crumbling to pittances. He undertook the Herculean task of rescuing at this time this estate from threatened ruin, and of vindicating the good name of his father from undeserved censure. He had in this gigantic work to meet and thwart the plots of rapacious railroad wreckers, and schemers; but his thorough mental discipline united with his intensely practical business training, and coupled with his native energy, tact, good sense, and fertility of resources, stood him in good stead. He inspired capitalists with confidence, money was forthcoming to further his carefully matured plans, and the ship freighted with the fortunes of his family, was, by his steady hand, piloted securely amidst the shoals and quicksands of disaster, and by rocks strewn with the wrecks of princely fortunes, to a safe anchorage. He rescued the property from peril, met and paid the enormous indebtedness resting upon it, paid a million of dollars or more of legacies, and had still a large surplus to divide among the heirs.