New-York tribune., 1873-06-18
THE MASSACHUSETTS, GOHERNORSHIP.


We shall be quite content to see Mr.. Ben
jamin F. Butler nominated by the Republicans
of Massachusetts for Governor. Indeed, we
are not certain that it is not of all things the
consummatiOn most devOutly to be wished.
To have it otherwise would be to put curb
upon the inexorable logic of events. 1t is, in
the natural flow of our politics, one of the in
evitable results to which the party in power
in the nation has been for a long time tending !;
as logical as rot or death. Better have it
done and over with than always threatening.
1t is an interesting question in political philOs
ophy, as well as in morals, how much the
stomach of Massachusetts will stand. This will
60 far to solve it. The character of Mr. But
Ter is flower and fruit of the time. He
has grown out of it, and he thoroughly illus
trates it. Peculiar in many things, he is in his
general presentation of characteristics, in the
assembage of his qualities, his intellectual
tout ensemble, so to speak, just what we might
expect-a perfectly natural growth. All the
political conditions of the past twelve years
have led up-or dOwn-to him. His roots have
reached out into the fertilizing rOttenness
where public virtue fell sap, moisture, vital
strength, he drew from sources where filth be-
got filth, and creeping things crawled and bur-
rowed he grew and developed in bad at
mosphere and on vile SOIL and to-day, o rank,
unwholesOme, and offensive BLOSSOM he sways
to passing breezes, bulging above the reek
that has engendered him, imparting neither
beauty to the eye nor pleasing odOrs to the
sense He has prospered, conspicuously pros
pered. He represents his age, and time, and
- l.. H., -
standards and materialistic tendencies of our
politics, utter absence Of honest conviction,
inability to comprehend truth, principle, OF
duty, lack of sincerity in himself or of appre-
henson of it in others, brutal lust of power,
coarseness, cruelty, and greed-all these, and
all the low-browed throng of passions that
hang at the heels of personal politics and per-
sOnal government, he represents, for they all
follow in his train. lie seems q success. In
good flesh and of good appetite and digestion,
rich, powerful, honored. "What more" asks
Young America, looking over all the public
men whose names are honored by their coun-
try-"what more Is there than this to live
"forf" Is there any morei Is this mans
success at pettifogging in politics, dema-
gOguery, brazen audacity, charlatanry, and
mental sleight of hand to make him an exam
pie for the youth of tho landi Or for the
youth of Massachusetts, that has honOred and
still hOnors himf If he is, make him Governor
and set him up in marble or in brass, that
they who come after us may see the face and
form of our divinity. The moral meaning of
such statue would not need translation.
Done to the life, it would transmit in endur-
ing form complete ideal Of the spirit of the
age.
1t is because he so thoroughly embodies the
idea of the period of greed through which we
are passing, or in which we are to be lost,
that we hope he will be led, or rather that he
win not be hindered, from stepping to the
front in Massachusetts. 1t is high time that
issue was joined upon just the questions such
q candidacy would open; time-all other ques-
tions that divided parties having been swept
out into the limbO-that the Republican Israel
call off for God OF Baal.
Let us remember for q moment how he grew
TO his present position and influence. He saw
no one sooner than he-in 1861, that his old
marty had touched the top of its tide and that
ITS ebb had begun. He was keen observer
of events and calculator Of chances, and IT was
his nature TO take large risks. At time
when the party just come to power seemed TO
i6e'',c be ,GcraspIng barren seepter when bloody