The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-02-27
A TYPICAL SOUTHERN STATESMAN.
Pen and Ink Portrait of Senator Butler
by a Republican Correspondent.
telegram to Chicago Times.
WASHINGTON, February s.

WASHINGTON, February s.
Ifany one in the North were to be
asked who is the most fierce and barba-
rous man among the unreconstructed
people in the South, the prompt reply in
the majority of cases would be Gen. NJ.
G. Butler, of South Carolina. But what
astonishes the people who make his ac-
quaintance is to learn how be could have
acquired any such bad reputation through
The North. Possibly Gen. Butler shares
this astonishment, for milder hammered
gentleman and one more agreeable in
social converse it would be hard to find
among the public men in Washington.
In the first place there is nothing about
the personal appearance of Butler to in
dicate the typical idea of Southern
man as is entertained by the people Of
the North. He does not wear his hair
long. 1t is all iron-gray, cropped close,
of the style Of French officer. He has
no blowing mustache or bushcy whiskers.
His face is smooth. shaven, except a me-
dunn gray mustache that slightly shades
his upper lip. Instead of the angular
bony face of the Southern type, his face
is round and full. His eyes, instead of
flashing with fierce emotion, are dead
cold gray, whose expression rarely
changes in the most intense excitement.
Senator Butler does not wear shiny
broadcloth clothes made into baggy
shapelessness; neither does he wear the
traditional huge soft black hat. He
dresses in the English style; generally
wearing close fitting black coats
made by the best of tailors. A stiff felt
hat or silk hat covers his head. His
boots also fit him, which fact also distin-
guishes him from the typical Southern
statesman. If you were to see N; G.
Butler in New York, London or Paris
you would say in all probability that he
was a citizen, of the place where you
saw him, so thoroughly at home does he
appear wherever he may happen to be.
Indeed, he is the reverse of almost
every idea that the Northern mind would
naturally conceive concerning q South
ern statesman. There is nothing of the
emotional in NJ. G. Butler. He is not a
man 10 act upon impulse, but always up
on cool judgment He is one of the
best men in the South so far as keen po-
litical judgment is concerned. A large
percentage of the success of Hampton, of
South Carolina, has been through the
counsels of his friend Butler, and yet one
unfortunate circumsLance-the fact OF
his being in the neighborhood of the
Hamburg massacre--has been sufficient
to create for him an evil reputation that
has existed for 80 long time in the
North, but which is now beginning to be
slowly corrected. He has been thor
oughiy vindicated by both parties. After
thorough investigation it has been shown
that he acted the part OF peace-maker
rather than as disturber of the peace,
and had his counsels been followed there
would have been no trouble whatever.
1t is an old proverb that lie can never
be overtaken by the truth, and it is for
that reason that Gen. Butler never
expects that the people of the North will
ever know him as he really is: quiet
gent!emanly student, who has studied
both the old world and the new, and re-
presents in Congress to-day tho very
best type of Southern. culture.