New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-07-18
u,prUE UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

VIRTUE UNDER DIFFICULTIES
The GOOD man struggling with adversely IL
NOT q less impressive sight when there are
aororol with him. In fact when the Soou
mon ore numerous enough TO form What is
called n minority their hopeless courage Dc
comes more respectable, "a 1T thus escapes the
charge of eccentricity. Those reputable re
nubIicons of Massachusetts who will not admit
that Mr.. BENJAMIN F. Butler is to DO their
Governor occupy this moral elevation, which
cannot but attract the tender regard OF the
candid world. They cannot desert their party,
they cannot revolt in advance from caucus
dictaton, they cannot wag the audacious tongue
of criticism against the Administration at
Washington but they can bandage their eyes,
or cross over to the other side whenever
they meet fact which would go to prove
that they must vote for Butler or bolt, ana
this they are constantly doing. They soothe
themselves by hollow songs OF confidence
They say that Butler is not acting with any
special vigor; that he flies the stump; that he
damaged himself at birmingham; that he has
but two planks for a safety-ratt, rum ana
railroads, and that the masses thrust the tongue
of unbelief in their cheek when these are nen-
toned. They say moreover, that the canvass
has not vet begun that the man of Lowell is
exbaustine his ammunition too early IN the
fight that the decent people are not yet
thoroughly frightened; that when they are sur
fcienty dismayed, you will see fine things
Bnt the point wherein their faith becomes
most absolute and most touching is when they
| assert that Mr.. Butler is not the Admlnlstra-
tion candidate. 1t is then they grow most
sbrill and obstreperOus III statement, ana
most disiointed and incoherent in demonstra-
! ton. He is not the Administration candidate
| they scream. If then yOu ask-Does Mr..
RusseII. the Collector at Boston, support him
! the reply is, "Yes-but that is from innate
"cussedness. and not by orders from Washing
TOM And how stands Gen. Hartman
| " He. too. strikes for Butler, but this also is
" from Unborn cussedDess." Mr.. Usher, the
Marshal-dOes he take any hand IN the en-
| suing gamei Yea, verify, but this le the
{" instigation Of Belal alone, and in no sense
L" of the Administration" And Judge Sanger
"Yes-Sanger is Butler,-- man, but
"be would be for Butler, all tho
"same, if he were not in Office" The
ouestioner flies from Boston, for on the
three mountains there is clearly no rest for
the sole of his foot. At least in New-BedfOrd
and Salem the publcans are free from the
trail of the serpent7 "Not sO-there also for
" Butler the Ofice-hOlders continually do cry"
| But where then, where between Cape Cod and
the Berkshire mills, can you find man bearing
the commission of the Government in his
pocket. who has manhood enough to say he
is not for Butleri The answer usually is, Mr..
"Burt, the Boston Postmaster he is not for
n ID ho hoa of
"him, or, certainly, he is not for him strong.'
Again, there are good men who cannot deny
what they see and who yet say that though
the Administration is for him, it cannot nom
mate him. But an Administration which can
nominate itself will have little difficulty in
strengthening the hands and the purse of its
most useful supporter, in his knavish way
through the primaries of a single State.
And after all, has not the world, even in the
midst of its sympathy for these sanguine and
virtuous recalcitrants, the right to suggest
that their virtue would have been more effect
ual if it had not come so late' Have they
not dallied with and condOned the very vices
which, now they are seen concrete in the per-
son of Mr.. Butler, strike them with horror
The discipline of party which he is about to
use for his own beneft-have they not Guilt
waited it for years, and denounced any honest
infraction of it as treason7 When he roars
for the enforcement of prohibition to please
the water-drinkers, and assures the Tum-drlnk-
ers that this policy will end in free rum, do
the honest men not remember instances where
they have not been quite outspoken upon this
question: They denounce him with great en-
ergy as the organizer of the Salary theft
but they have not word to say of
the August Parsonage by whose signature
that sordid conspiracy became law, and who
prolited by it tenfOld more than any man who
voted for it. And if 1t is his mere demagogic
vulgaIity to which they object it is singular
they could have remained so silent when
brawling ruifian from AthOl bullied the Cen
eral Court into an open insult to Charles
Sumner, which that same Assembly, in cold
blood, influenced either by ignorant prejudice
or craven subservience, refused to expunge
though the better conscience of NewEngland
Republcanism, represented by John Greenleaf
Whittier, labOred the Winter through to free
the State from that disgrace.
-
ABOUT ANOTHER FIFTEEN MILLION