The Portland daily press., 1883-01-24
New York Tribune.l
He Doesn't Know Benjan

Ifa man who had enjoyed opportunities
through many years of personal observation
and occasional periods of Intimate acquaintance
and association for finding out the friskiness,
uncertainty and ubquty of the flea should de-
hberately ard gratuitously, in mixed compa-
ny, contemplating the saltations Of some par
ticularly lively flea, risk his reputation on a
positive prediction that the flea would not
make his next appearance on the bald head OF
the mostIremote and inaccessible spectator, we
should say that either he was himself unac-
oountably fresh, or that he utterly failed to ap
preciate the pervasiveness and unexpectedness
Of the bird in question. What then shall We
say of Democratic newspaper published in
Richmond, Va, which, after years of opportu
nifty for becoming acquainted with Gov. Ben
iamn #. Butler and his unique gifts aud graces,
sits down deliberately and commits itself to a
positive prediction as to where that professor
of the hop, apos tie Of the skip and high priest
of the jump will not appear next? Is the Rich
mond D ispatch merely too fresh when it says
in half oracular manner "Gov. Butler mght
as we'll learn first as last that neither party will
ever nominate him for Fresident;' or is it pos
sible that after all these years it fails to COM
prehend that statesman's wondrous gifts where
by he forever eludes the thumb of investiga-
ton and pursuit. and steals up the sleeve of
his pursuer? We suspect that it does not know
him. 1t certainly does not know him as they
do in Boston. Should wager be offered in
that tangled town that Gov. Butler would be
found some fine morning sitting in his night
shirt on the spire of the Old South Church,
there would be no takers. And no Boston
h Aox,
looking at the steepe of the Old South to see if
Benz min had got there yet.
And yet the Richmond Dispatch has the as
sLrance TO undertake to forecast his future SO
far as to say that he can never be nominated
for President by either party. Obviously it
doesn't know him. Why, when this man goes
for a nomination of any sort he means business.
1t isn't any Fort Fisher racket-bIowing up
that but once. Now when he wants nomina-
ton he sticks to it till he gets it, and If he
doesn't get 1T from one party he does from The
other. 1t makes no difference with him which
he gets itfrom. It's all the same SO he gets it.
LII direct assault fails he lays siege; he trenches
| and mines and approaches by zigzags and null
| ttude of indirections, as he did during the sue
| cession OF Years in which he sought the Repub-
| lican nomination for Governor OF Massachu-
| seits All these failing, he SIMPLY sends out
scaling party with ladders to enter the conyen-
! ton OF the other party by third-story window
| and capture the nominations by surprise. No
| flea, even under galvanic battery could make
| livelier work than this One moment the large,
heavy thumb of Massachusetts Rapublcsnism
| drops heavily on the spot where he is supposed
to be, and naturally ought to be; the next he
| winks at you from the extremely bald head and
| sensitive scalp of the exceedingly respectable
Massachusetts Democracy. He reached il part
| ly by satation and partly by ladder. A year
| previous, persons who knew the general only
| by his abortive attack on Fort Fisher and his
unsuccessful siege OF Worcester, and had never
| seen him In his great grasshopper act, would
| have laid heavy odds that he could never be
| nominated for Governor of Massachusetts,
| They would have laid still heavier that he
would never be nominated by Democrats, and
would have laughed any man 10 scorn who sug-
gested the possibility that he would be the
Democratic candidate within the year. But he
| was, all the same. He isn't safe man to lay
| wagers on or prophesy about
| The Richmond paper manifestly does not
| know him. Massachusetts does. SO does Bos-
| ton. And SO, to an unusual degree with a
knowledge born of hard knocks, does he Hon.
| Frank Bird Alb, for how many successive
| years did Frank Bird and Sam Bowles and
"BilF' 4 Warringtonl Robinson, and the Hoar
brothers and the rest cit together 10 musty
room in the Bay State House, at Worcester, on
| the eve of the State convention, working M
! the opposition to Butler, and devising barriers
between him and the Republican nomination.
And the most detected and melancholy Bird in
| the whole flock over the possibility OF Butlsr
| Butler he went over to the Democracy. sfThe
villain still pursued him. Ha hac hardly
| struck the roost when Benjamin was beside
him. Worse still, he got the regular Delno-
| cratic nomination for governor, and Bird was
obliged to signalize his entrance into the party
| by boiling regular nomination. Nobody who
knew Bird we'll and Butler not very well
would have hesitated at that time to have laid
wager of say million dollars against a nick
ell that Frank Bird would never be found yot-
ing for Butler for governor But he was, all
the same. And what is more, and must have
made Bowles and Robinson turn over in their
| graves, he has since then been attending din
ners in honor of Butler. Let it fasten its mind
| little more friendly upon his character and
career, be ginning, say with his vote for Jeffer-
! son Davis in the Charleston convention of
1860, and coming down by easy stages to the
| present time. If, after careful consideration
| OF his character and qualities, it is prepared to
risk the prediction that it will not itself be
| found urging Buffers nomination for the
| Presidency in 1884, we shall-wait and Sec