Bass attended Milton Academy, graduated from Dartmouth College in 1934, and from Harvard Law School.

He practiced as a lawyer and served in the United States Army Air Forces in Asia during World War II.

[4] After serving four terms in the U.S. Congress, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in a 1962 special election.

After defeating interim Senator Maurice J. Murphy Jr., Doloris Bridges, and Congressman Chester Merrow in the Republican primary, he was defeated in the general election by Democrat Thomas J. McIntyre.

From 1972 to 1976, he served as a selectman of Peterborough, New Hampshire, where he lived until his death in 2011, aged 99.