The Portland daily press., 1874-03-17
Massachusetts on Trial.


81 f-.N
Massachusetts, on Trial.
The contest for the seat in the United
States Senate left vacant by Mr.. Summers
death will have more than local interest.
1t concerns the nation. Massachusetts mas
long been reyered as the representative
American State. In controversies touchlnS
the comparative merits OF government MASS
has been oftenest referred 10 ny re-
publicans as affording the most creditaDie re-
suits of self government. In culture, morals,
progress and material prosperity the old
has been conspicuous, so that,
when foreign democrat has commended to
bis own people republican institutions, the
Massachusetts, model has been in the mind
Of his hearers, as well as in his own.
But within few years those who have
most hopored this typical commonwealth
have been saddened by frequent evidences Of
an inde6nable lowering Of tone, nameless
Of popular feeling, the exaltation
of a less reputable class of men than formerly
and the gradual supplanting of statesmen by
demagogues and adventures. The best ma
terial exemplifcation of this tendency is the
ascendency acquired by b. F. Butler ove-
large minority of the people of the state.
We have already expressed the conviction that
that bad man could not get such
foothold in Maine, were he resident here.
The intellectual and moral conditions are not
such as to favor his progress or extend his in
fuence. But in part of his own State he is
already omnipotent, while. in other counties
ing with him a warfare in which they have
twice won victory, which augurs we'll for flu
ture success, and would have been conclusive
against any merely human charlatan; but
Butler is clearly superhuman in impudence
and persistence, and is about as pronounced a
representative Of sheer diabolism as has af-
frighted the earth in modern times. So the
fight of good against evil must be constant and
continuous; any abatement would be ruinous.
The death of Mr.. Sumner and the impend-
ing selection of his successor on the oath
inst. brings to definite issue the contest be-
tween the old Massachusetts and the new
between the Massachusetts of Samuel Adams,
Hancock, Webster, Jos :ah Quincy, Everett,
Andrew aud Sumner and the Massachusetts
of Ames, Hooper, Alley, Simmons and But
Ter. If B. F. Butler or any of his friends, de-
tenders or sympathizers, should be chosen to
sit where the man of lofty patriotism, ripe
culture and untarnished fame has so long re-
fected honor upon his State and country, it
may well be regarded as an indication that
the metamorphosis Of Massachusetts APP
proaches completion, and that 1t must,
in the near future, be classified
with low principled or mercenary states like
New jersey, Pennsylvania or Indiana where
the people easily submit their necks to the
yoke of a wealthy and reckless leader, or al
low themselves to be overborne by combi-
nations between such men and the most de-
PRAYED and ignorant part of the populace,
Some other state would then distinctly
emerge from its thirty-six associated repub-
lies and assume the position of intellectual
and political leadership which Massachusetts
has held SO long. Perhaps it would be
Malne=perhaps some Of -thase clean, nohly=
intelligent western states like Iowa and Wis
consin, to which the best blood of New En-
gland has impaired its characteristic virtues,
and made them heirs of those high aspira-
tions and lofty notions of public morality and
democratic progress which, alas seem to be
growing dim in some parts of the land where
they had birth. The changes of population
in Massachusetts, incident to its TRANSFORMED
ton from an agricultural and commercial to
great manufacturing state, have done more
than all else to produce the existing condition
of diminished mental activity and moral STAN
ina. The Generalization is fortunately local
and is almost exclusively confined to the sea-
board and to the great manufacturing towns.
The center and west-an agricultural region
where almost everybody owns his homestead
and has stake in the county"-is sound to
the core and stands as bulwark against But
ierism and all that class of political depra sity.
Ihere live the yeomanry, sturdy, intelligent
and honest-not skid glove politicians as
the Butler henchmen delight TO call them
and there is the soul of the true Massachusetts,
and the hope of good men everywhere.
Happy will 1t be for Massachusetts and the
country, If man of the Sumner stamp be
chosen to fill his place-a man like Judge
Hoar, Tor instance, on whom the late Senator
cast his mantle, as II were, when he Law ex-
piring, by the solemn iteration of the words,
Take care of the Civil Rights bill." He
seemed to look, with the clairvoyant eye of a
dying man, into the future, and To see his emf
nent and high-minded friend clothed with the
Senatorial dignity, which he himself was
about to lay down. Though Judge Hoar,
perhaps, resembles the dead senator in his
characteristic faults of arrogance and i'm
practicability, yet, as compensation, he has
many OF Summers characteristic powers and
virtues. Ii such man as Judge Hoar, or
his distinguished and scholarly brother, or
Mr.. Dawes is exalted above Butler and hi,
mob, the old historical and classic Massachu
sets may proudly claim that she has won
new lease of life, and that she has within her
bosom the germs of restoration to her pris-
tine fame and glory.