The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-06-18
Indications that Governor Cleveland
Will Be Indorsed at Saratoga.
General Butler Declares Blaine the Strongest
Man the Republicans Could Have
Named-Republican Boilers.
THE GREENBAcK NOMINATION.


| NEW YORK, June II-ln response to the
formal announcement of his nomination by the
committee Of the Greenback national conven-
ton, General Butler writes:
LOWELL, Mass, June u
Gentlemen of the Committee:
II received at your hands the official an
nouncement of the action of the convention at
Indianapolis with deep sensibility In the
ordinary course of political events the choice of
a convention of representative men of any con
siderable portion of my fellow citizens accord
ing me this highest honor they can confer,
| would call for grateful acknowledgement, even
though it might be selection to represent the
thought of such convention upon a question
which commonly divides the political parties
views upon such questions may have been in
her1ted or be an outgrowth of measures merely
of administration. The great questions you pre-
sent are higher and grander than any mere
political measure.
Nearly quarter Of a century ago, when the
very existence of the republic and the establish
ment of democratic representative government
| hung trembling upon the issue of the greatest
| civil war the world has ever known, or may ever
| know, by the wisdom born of imperious neces
s1ty. financial system springing from patriotic
impulse to save the nations life and rescue the
hope of free institutions for all men from going
down forever in darkness and death was devised
| by the great and good men of that day. to whose
| care republican government, to be administered
for the people and by the people, had been con
hded That system of finance for free people
IL its infancy saved the life of the
nation, which would have perished with
| out 1t, and broke the chains which enslaved
four million men. 1t gave this country where
war was raglng prosperity it had never known
1t enabled the people to assess upon themselves
| and pay taxes OF an extent before unknown in any
country; it made it posi- for the government to
repay three-fold for all it received in loans from
any creditor, or gave to him security more profit
| able and stable titan ever issued by any
power in the world, and made the financial sys
tenn OF our government at once the envy and the
admiration of all men. This was done by a
legal-tender currency, while questions as to its
| stability were raised by every form of legisa-
ton, which it included, and while still graver
doubts prevailed in the minds of many
wise and patriotic men whether legal
tender currency, inexpensive and, in
fact resting not on the intrinsic value of the ma
| terlal on which it was coined, was within the
constitutional competency and power of the leg
islatlve branch of the government. That
question having been three times submitted to
| the supreme Court of the United States the
very highest tribunal of constitutional con-
struction, was at last decided in the affirmative
with such unanimity as shows that there might
have been no reasonable doubt against it.
"One purpose of your organization, and of
those who thought and acted with you, although
not OF 1t, was to support and sustain this money
as the currency of the people. This peoples
currency You well say, was designated
| by its friends by the pet name
of the greenback Two years ago 1 did myself
| Ine uOIOr 10 say UnaJ q currency so commended
| by the merit of It's great deeds wrought for the
! peoples safety and prosperity enacted by the
| highest legislative power, adjudicated by such
court, and the decision about to be reafirmed
was an accomplished fact never again to be dis
| turbed or doubted, so that its friends might
we'll say: See, the end of our labors in this re-
gard has come; let us rejoice. Let those who
aided In this great work press on to deal with
equally important unsettled and necessary meas
ureS for the welfare of the whole people, The
| legal tender having become the very
foundation of, as we'll as measure of value en-
tering into all the business of the people, the en-
gine of the prosperity of the nation, it seems to
me almost an act of cruelty again to disturb
causelessly, financial question which has been
so set at rest, with the assent of all good men, as
much so as was the question of the right of man
| to hold his brother man in slavery; therefore,
said: L am glad that that question has no longer
a part in political consideration, and statesman
| ship may now turn from it as the country has
| turned from the question of slavery and war.
But, alas! the powers of darkness of error, the
reSurrectonlsts OF false ideas of the dead past
contention from the peaceful graves
where they slept and threaten, by a
rehash of exploded solutions formulated into a
| platform by party convention-to revvfy and
| agitate controversies which will unsette com
mercial values, hinder and delay the business of
our people with apparently but single object
to extend a system of purely paper currency is
| sued by corporations, established by the gov
ernment indeed but for private emolument and
gain, which currency itself is to be valuable
only because it is made redeemable in every
greenback which this ghoul-like agitation seeks
| to repudiate, overthrow and destroy. Such a
currency Andrew Jackson, with the prescience
and wisdom of statesman, by the iron hand of
a soldier, sustained by the Democracy of more
than a generation ago, had wholly crushed and
| in the hope of the wise and good, had buried
forever, as one of the grievious errors of admin
istration which had insidiously crept into the
government, for the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of the few
to the destruction of the people As Democrat
taught in the jackson school in my early youth
with my Judgment matured by many years of con
verse in public life aided by earnest and deep
study; with intensity of purposes with topic of
such magnitude, affecting every interest of the
people, and, it may be, the very existence of free
institutions | am constrained, were it the last
act of my life in view of this attempt to undo
what jackson had so well done, coming from
whatsoever source the question may, to say to
you, gentlemen there seems wisdom, in
deed a necessity, for further continuance
of yonr organization in this renewed
exigency, and therefore; in this contest l am
with YOU and if there were but two of us, we
ought to stand together against this great wrong,
and call upon all true men to stand with us,
either inside outside as the case may be- of
other political organizations which may aim to
perfect other measures for the good of the coun-
try.
81 thank you for your suggestion as, to 9th
er matters toward which your organization turns
| the interests of labor, the preservation of the
lands of the people for the benefit of the people,
the control of agencies created by the govern
ment to be used for the good of the people, to
| regulate and control a system of interstate
| commerce Which shall control and cheaper the
| transportation of persons and freight legislation
to protect all in their just rights and conine all
to their true duties, to the end that there may
be in this country equality of rights, equality
! Of burdens equality Of privileges, and equality