The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1866-10-16
Notes on ihc Recent Canvass I'm PemnsyiS"-
mia and the West.

To THE EDITOR THE Press:
My first thought as 1 passed through ,.o
streets of Pittsbure was how much larger tnis
TOWN 10 than 7 axnected. / had been there
MANY t;mes hefore hut always with the impress
sion that it might contain popuiaeioii =,
OF sixty thousand inhabitants. Du' 40
verse the streets find my mistaKe' anu aa'o,
seeking the proper source OF lhloriliatioh niu
the nonulation over two hundred thousand
This includes Allegheny City on the other side
- the river which of itself is one-third larger
than Portland. Also a number of other vii
lagos and towns in the immediate neighbor-
hood, all of which the Pittsburghers claim as
part of the place. They also claim that, accord
ing to population, it is the richest place, with
one or two exceptions, in the United States
1t is certainly place of great wealth. And
whence came it? Principally from the manu-
facture of iron and steel Contrary to the gen.
eral impression the iron ere to supply their
hundreds of acres of furnaces does not come
from the near by mountains, but the coal only
The ore is brought from Lake Superior, There
is a plenty of it within hundred miles, but in
ferior in quality and containing much larger
per centage OF stony matter. By day there is
one dense cloud of smoke overhauging the
country for leagues. By night the flames are
streaming from thousand earth-pits and Chin
neys, begetting in the beholder a momentary
fear that he is in the land of subterranean fires,
and is in constant danger of being destroyed
by a sudden flame, or buried alive by the up
heaving earth. Here are the head waters of
the Ohio. Both rivers the Allegheny and Mo
nongahela are crowded with RATS and steam
ers. A hundred miles up the former river are
the oil regions. The refuse matter from the re-
fineries, with the oil that is wasted in handling
and transportation, changes the appearance of
the water in the riveAso much that at times
there will be third'or half an acre of surface
covered with complete film of oil. 1t is
brought down in boats of great length in its
crude state and refined and marketed at Pitts
burg. The population is mainly natives In
politics and industry they resemble New Eng
land, though in nothing else. Radical as Mas
sachusetts" can be said of few Western cities,
yet it can be said of Pittsburg. ~ iG5aaa3
But of the convention. There were eleven
thousand boys in blue as delegates, represent
ing every loyal State, assembled, not for con-
troversy; not to carry a measure popular in
Ohio but distasteful to Maine; not for one sec
ton to bargain with another to outvote and
circumvent third; but as brothers of one
household, to talk over their three or four years
companionship in the field; to live over briefly
the campaigns of the Peninsula, the march to
the sea, &C.; one thought, one determination
living in every one of the eleven thousand
hearts that beat under their blue jackets, and
that the purpose to resist to death the yielding
to rebels advantages gained in the long and
fearful fight. 'h7s7t
L saw in 1860, in Springfield, Illinois, as great
multitude of people as ON the greatest day at
Pittsburg But the politicians were prominent
there. A New England man was feared. 1t
was hardly safe to let him take the stump. The
newborn Republicans of Indiana and Illinois
We're shocked at New England abolitionism.-
They could go mo more slave territory but
they could not stand the sentiment, Slavery is
sin and ought to be abolished Henry Will
son and John p. Hale were not wanted there.
But at Pittsburg the man of all others whom
the people wished to hear, and whom they
never tired of hearing, was bold Ben Butler
Not because he is graceful or winning speak
er; not for the melody Of his voice; not for any
novelty or peculiarly, for really, as stump
speaker he is hardly above the average. can
easily name twenty that excel him. But his
record SINCE tins opeaahs VI flas sNar j. such
that the people wish to see the man, and hear
all he has to say He was the same Ben But
Ter in New Orleans as when he was building
railroads to save, and did save, Baltimore. He
is the same Ben Butler to-day, when weak
kneed Generals are afraid of Andy johnson
as he was when his black troops went at his
bidding through the morass and abattis at New
Market, took that important position, and
when as he looked on the hundreds of mute
black faces, dead for the flag they loved he
swore that his hand should forget its cunning
and his tongue eleave to the roof of his mouth
ere he should forget to stand up for the black
soldiers rights Ben Butler is their represen-
titive man. He is for making treason odious;
SO are they. He is for asking pledges of rebels
before they come into the full possession of
privileges once spurned; SO are they. He is
for waiting till the prodigals come back re-
pentant before he kills the fatted calf, and SO
are they. He is not for negro suffrage, nor |
Irish suffrage, nor German suffrage, but for |
suffrage. In this he speaks the feel |
ing of the Republican party of the great West |
as well as of all the loyal States iil Il
Il What 1 have said of Buffers reception at |
Pittsburg I may say of it in other places L |
saw the crowds that came to hear him at ToIe- |
do, fremont, Tifffn Sandusky Newark, Column
bus, and other places; and there is no man in
the nation whom the Western Copperheads
hate worse or the Western Union men regard
with more admiration than Ben Butler. r
There are few facts | wish to mention
though / have said much more than intend
ID. The mass meetings OF the West are on (
cale OF grandeur to astonish New England
II. People come sixty miles in an open wag-
IN to attend them. A mass meeting is the
event of the year. They try to treasure up ev-
Try sentiment they hear, talk it over and over
With their neighbors, teach it to their children
and vote it at the polls Twenty thousand at
4 mass meeting in a common sized village is
not an uncommon gathering 1 saw many
such in different parts of Pennsylvania and
Ohio. .,llss IN
Among the loyal masses there were also
% be seen some poverty stricken sons of Ten
1essee, and some bushwhackers of Kentucky.
who have come into the States flowing with
milk and honey, to live ON their sympathizing
friends. Every man of them hated Union
nan as the devil is reputed to hate holy water.
saw at the drinking saloons in the different
titles rabble Of bloats blocking the sidewalks
IS the crowds We're passing, hurrahing and
wearing for Andy johnson. / saw women
Who had been active members in the society
hat made dime contributions to the martyr
yallandigham in his Punishment, and there is !
ot one of them but thinks Andy johnson is
ext to Washington. saw an army of Can
da patriots who could not stand the draft,
ut have returned to the land they deserted
nd every mothers son of them voted on the
tn instant for Andy Johnson's friends But
the two hundred thousand Union voters 1
aw at the Western mass meetings in Septem-
er and October, scarcely one is to be found but
VIII light rather than yield the rights they have
,alned; and of ba bu M rod 1<,,o1 -