The semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1882-1886, 1884-08-30
BEN BUTLER.

BFiN BUTLER.
Ben Butler is an incorrigabk polit
ical tramp. But although his de
mand for alms as his wanders from
one political household to another il
always made with an insolen'
swagger calculated to alarm the un.
prote ,ted women and children O
the family, there is nevertheless
something of an amusing character
about the vagrancy which sdisposes
people to laugh at him rather than
hand him over to the police.
Since Butler sat in the Charleston
convention, first insisting on the
adoption of the Cincinnati platform,
pure and simple, and then voting
f~fty-seven times Tor JEFF Davis as the
nominee for president, he made no
more impudent and at the same time
ridiculous exhibition of himself than
In his present masquerade as a can
didate for the Presidential office.
Candidate of whom? Candidate of
what party? Candidate of what
platform? Candidate for what pur-
pose? =
Butler, to be sure. has received a
nomination from a s~o-called Green
back organization, small in numbers
but big in Greenback aspirations
whenever 8 Presidential election
comes round and the committees of
the great political parties tegin to
raise money. He has also, We be-
lieve, been named by a so-called
Anti Monopoly organization which
proves its ignorance or its dishonesty
by opposing Democratic success,
through which alone an earnest,
honest Autobiography policy can be
secured, and by indorsing a corrupt
demagogue who has been for years
and is to-day the paid tool of monop-
olies and corporations. But for
what great body of people do these
self constituted organizations speak?
What amount of reliance is to be
placed on their leaders? What great
principles are promulgated by George
O. Jones, a notorious lobbyist, or by
the leaders of the s0-called Anti
Monopoly League" who are ac-
tuated by personal enmity against a
single railroad corporation and whose
League" is located in their own
counting-rooms?
1t is really amusing to see this
rabid, extravaganza, piratical poll
tician setting himself up as a pres;-
Dental candidate and arraigning the
great Democratic National Conven-
ton, composed of able Statesmen and
representative citizens from all the
States of the Union, beause, forsooth, |
it would not suffer him to make its
platform or degrade the party by
giving him its nomination.
What claim did ben Butler have
on the Democracy? He turned Re-
publican for the f1eshpots, and would
have been in that party to-day if
Grants political career had not been
brought to a sudden close and if the
Republicans of Massachu-
sectts had not set their dogs on him
and driven him from their gate. He
went to the Democratic party in the
State and the Democrats received
him because they could not hope to
carry the State without Republican
lid and Ben Butler was in
position to bring over some of his old
friends to the Demo-
cratic side. But the Massachusetts,
would have received no
from the sturdy old tramp
fthey had not given him the meal
le demanded. They. had to make
him governor, and on the strength
# that position he advanced his bold
md ins0lent demand for tbs preeiden-
ial nomination.
But what 8 to discuss a candi-
lacy that has no existence except
N paper? The fraud of the whole
is made apparent by the
proposition of Butler to "fuse' with
he minority party in every close or
doubtful state and then to share up
he electoral vote. The only object
f the Butler bogus campaign is to
lect his old congressional friend and
'artner, Blaine, who made Butler
of the Civil Service Reform
ommittee in congress, and who has
greed through Bill Chandler on the
rice to be paid for any assistance
'utler can be to the Republicans in
ne election.