The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-03-31


whom the new President would spontaue-
ously wish to be indebted for a favor, least Of
all for such a conspicuous service as Batter
Is now rendering him. When poor old King
Lear, in the play, has no friend left to take
his part against his thankless daughters but
the injured Kent, we get more vivid impres.
sion of his forsaken desolation than the poet
could have given us in any other manner.
But Lear was spared the degradation of
accepting the services of Kent knowing who
he was. Shakespeare would have sunk
that wonderful tragedy into q farce,
he would have stripped its hero of ali
dignity, il he had not made the ban
ished Kent disguise himself so that the DESC
late old King thought he was indebted to
a stranger, not to courtier whom he had dis
glaced in freak of passion and driven from
his presence. But General Grants pride ia
not thus saved in accepting the championship
of Butler. Everybo knows who Grant is
who Butler is, and what malignant stabs they
have been so long publicly dealing at each
others reputation. The new relation which
has so suddenly sprung up between them
does not in the least humiliate Butler; IL is
rather his triumph. 1t enables him to spread
the tail-feathers of magnsnimity to patro-
nize man who has affected to despise him;
to figure before the country as the Congress
sionsl organ of the President But nothing
should be more mortifying to General Grant.
II shows how poor he is in vigorous friends,
when he is reduced to accept, as his leading
advocate and manager, a man whom he has
publicly scorned and disparaged, and whom
he caused to be sent home from the army in
disgrace.
This President Grant, who leans 80 surpris-
iDgly upon Butler, is the same General Grant
who made an annual report in which he ridi-
culed General Butler as having been bottled
up with his army on the James, who accused
IT. Iy.,t.o. 4.
and who made that fasco the occasion of
strandipg him as a soldier, and ending his
military career. 1t is the same General Grant
who has never since till within the last five
months, spoken to Butler at all, nor Of him
but in terms of contempt and dislike. And
this Butler, who figures as Grants foremost
counsellor and champion among the Republi-
can members of Cong! ess, is the same But
ler who kept paid spies about General Grants
who made a record OF all the
ugly and discreditable facts he
could gather; who, after he was
sent home to Lowell, made harangue to q
large public meeting arraigning Grant for
butcherly sacrifice Of life, accusing him of
tbwarting all arrangements for the exchange
Of prisoners, and making him the beartless
author Of the cruel sufferings and loathsome
deaths Of our poor soldiers in the Rebel mill
tary prisons. It is the same Butler who
wrote, and less than year ago caused to be
printed, scathing pamphlet exposing General
Grants incompetence as the commander OF
the army which operated against Richmond,
aud held that pamphlet in reserve as rod in
piohle for Grant, to be used on the first op-
portune occasion.
Ii General Grant were naturally of plaza.
bic, forgiving temper, his present de-
pendence on Butler would not seem quite
so humiliating; but everybody knows that
the new President is singularly stiff and
stubborn in his resentments. His hatred OF
President johnson was 80 obstinate that he
violated the customary decorum of inaugura-
ton day, although the retiring President,
himself man of a dogged temper, made such
voluntary overtures that General Grant could
gracefully have yielded on that ceremonious
occasion without the slightest sacrifice of rea-
sonable pride. His surprising reconciliation
with Butler goes very far beyond public con.
cessiOn to decorum on ceremonious occa-
sion. To have rode in the same carriage
with President Johnson would have implied
no restoration of cordiality, nor even of pri-
vate civility. But he is more than reconciled
to Butler. A magnanimous man may nobly
forgive an injury but 1t is not magnanimity,
it is meanness, that descends to accept load
of obligations and services from one who has
| persistently belittled and disparaged you, aud
whom you have persistently disparaged, as
u
| proportion as Grants hatreds are notoriously
| inveterate and his prejudioes unyielding, just
| in that proportion is it evident that he has
| accepted the championship of Butler from the
| lack of other strong supporters. His poverty
| not his will, consents.
II General Buffers standing in the Repub.
| lican party were different from what it is, il
| would not be quite so degrading humiliation
| to the President to have formed with him
these close relations of dependence. 1t might
be claimed that General Grant had sacrificed
his personal antipathies to Buffers recognized
| position of leadership. But II is notorious
| that Butter holds no such position. strong
effort was made by the Republicans Of other
| parts of the country, at the last election, tc
defeat him in his own district. Three-f -fourthf
| of the Republican papers OF the country pub
licly deprecated his election. Another Repub
| lican candidate was put into the field against
him. Money and hostile speakers were sem
| into the district to defeat him; his reelection
being generally regarded as a calamity aud 8
scandal to the Republican party. Besides
Buffers minor audacities and escapades, and
| his known epmity to General Grant, he had
| boldly stolen Mr.. Pendleton's thunder. He haG
| advocated not only the payment of the bond,
in greenbacks, but the overthrow of the
| national banks. He was thus in hostility
both to the Republican platform and the Re
| publican candidate. In accepting such
| champion the new President most assuredly
has not deferred to the wishes of the Repub
l can party. Butler has probably espouse(
Grants quarrel to revenge himself upon hi
Republican enemies. By the same means h,
can expose the weakness of Grant and brset
disturbance in the party. The Republican
who opposed his return to Congress on tn
ground that he was the enemy OF Genera
| 1of rat in hao