The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-25
GENERAL BUTLER A FAILURE.


From the N. Y. Herald.
We had great hopes of General Butler in
Congress after his clever management of the
impeachment prosecution against Andy john
son. We thought for some time after that
affair that Butler was the man to take the
place as s'the great commoner" and leader of
the House, left vacant by ''Old Thad
Stevens" After fair trial, however, he
must, as an aspirant for this position, be pro-
nounced failure He is keen lawyer, he
has all the points, all the authorities, all the
precedents, and all the quirks and quibbes of
the law at his fingers ends. He proved his
efficiency as lawyer all through the war; and
if be was ''bottled up" as a soldier il was
perhaps, because he undertook to manage his
own army and the army opposed to him in the
field according to the rules of law laid down
by Blackstone as superior to the military
ideas of Napoleon Butler, in short,
manouvred against Beauregard as lawyer
and SO Beauregard ''bottled' him. In Con-
gress. however, where solid ability and the
tricks of the law and parliamentary strategy
and tactics carry the day, we had expected
Butler to achieve the first position. Schenck,
however by hard labor and self-possession
has got ahead of him; and Bingham, too,
always watching for his opportunity, is getting
ahead of 1.-THE gentleman from Massachu-
setts." We have seen. over and over again,
Houee, or in a sudden skirmish, with sharp
shooters blazing away all around him, Butler,
if he can only contrive to keep cool, is equal
to the emergency and a match for the best of
them. We have seen. however, from time to
time. as in the late affair with Farms worth
that Butler cannot always keep cool; that, in
fact, he is too apt to fly off the handle and
spoil his case by getting into fit of ridicu-
lous indignation, which trips him up and lays
him out fiat as founder.
From this weakness we have been disap-
pointed in our great expectations of But
Ter; yea, grievously disappointed. He fails
to come up to the mark of ''Old Thad. Ste
vens." He can't begin to do it. WHAT a
tremendous old fellow was sold Thad" in his
quiet way. He was competent to lead the
men around him by the nose, because he
knew how to govern himself. He was man,
too, of strong passions, and terrible in his
wrath: but he was not the man to get up a
tempest in teapot, with himself in the tea
pot He knew how to disarm his antagonist
in the fercest attack by turning the laugh
upon him. as Butler himself did--on one
happy occasion-with his ''shoo fly. y
1t Seems strange that an elderly, big-headed
and bald-headed Massachusetts lawyer,
like Butler, should not be equal to this
sort of thing on all occasions. But he isn't.
Farnsworth catches him mapping, and he
becomes on MS OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
fussy and ferocious as fre-eater, or as a
school-boy caught with a contraband water
melon. We are sorely distressed at this affair.
1t places our champion, Butler, in the di.
lemma of General Scott, when he was
''caught with his breeches down." What are
we to do? 81 am afraid, as honest Old Abe
is credited with saying of another man, 81
am afraid that our man is not as big as oul
measure, and that we must take him down
peg or two." Accordingly, we agree that But
Ter, incompetent to control himself, is, will
all his great capabilities, reduced in Congress
to the grade of an irresponsible bushwhacker
whose only safety, as at Bermuda Hundred,
is under the wing of General Grant.