, 1884-06-18
BUTLER ACCEPTS
The Nomination of the Green
back-Labor Party.
What the Emerald Hued Cur
rency Has Done
For the Country and For the
World at Large.
Buffers Bugle Note.


New YORK, June lin response to
the formal announcement of his nomina-
ton by the Greenback- Labor National
Convention, Geperal Butler says:
LOWELL, Mass, June II.
Gentlemen OF the Committee
L received at your hands the official an
nouncement of the action taken by the
convention at indianapolis with deep SEN
sibility. In the ordinary course of politi-
cal events the choice of a convention of
representative men from any considerable
portion of my citizens according to me
this highest honor that they can confer
would call for grateful acknowledgment,
even though it might be a selection to
represent the thought of such a conven-
ton upon questions which commonly
divide political parties. Views upon
such questions may have been inherited
or an outgrowth of measures merely
of administration. The great questions
YOU present are higher and greater than
any mere political measure. Nearly a
quarter of a century ago, when the very
existence of the republic, and the estab-
lishment of a democratic representative
government hung trembling upon the is
sue of the greatest civil war the world has
ever known, or may ever know, by the
wisdom born of
AN MPERIoUs NECESSITY,
a financial system, sprung from the pa
tTiotic impulse to save the national 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 a republican government, to be adj
ministered for the people and by the peo-
pie, had been conided. That system of
finance for a free people in its infancy
saved the life of a nation perishing with
out it. and broke the chains which enslav-
ed four million men. 1t gave to this
country, war raging, a prosperity it had
never known. 1t enabled people to as
sess upon themselves and pay taxes to an
extent before unknown in any country.
1t made it possible for the government to
repay AlltN-lplu All luG iOdllS IL udu IT.
ceived from any creditor, or gave to him
a security more profitable and stable than
had ever been issued by any power in the
world and made the financial system of
our government at once
THE ENVY N ADMIRATION OF ALL
f
This was done by the legal tender curren-
cy, while questions as to its stability were
raised by the very form of the legislation
by which it was enacted and while still
graver doubts prevailed in the minds of
many wise and patriotic men as to wheth-
er a legal tender currency, inexpensive in
fact, resting, not on the intrinsic value of
the material on which it was coined, was
within the constitutional competency and
power of the Legislative branches of gov
eminent. That question having been
three timee submitted to the Supreme
Court of the United States, the very
highest tribunal of constitutional construc-
ton, was at last
DECIDED IN THE AFFIRMATIVE,
with such unanimity that there could he
no reasonable doubt against it. One
purpose of your organization, and of those
who thought and acted with you, although
not of it, was to support and sustain this
money as the currency ofthe people. This
peoples currency, you will remember, was
designated by its friends by the pet name
of the "Greenback. Two years age l
did myself the honor to say that that cur
rency, SO commended by the merit of its
great deeds, wrought for the people safe
ty and prosperity, enacted by the highest
legislative power, adjudicated by such and
with the decision about to be r~eafhrmed,
was an accomplished fact never again to
be disturbed or doubted, so hat its friends
might well say; See, the end of our la
bors in this regard has come; so let US 70
joice. Let those who aided in this great
work press on TO deal with equally i'm,
important, unsettled and necessary meas,
ures, for the welfare of the whole people. -
The legal tender having become the very
foundation of, as well as a
MEASURE OF VALUE,
entwined with all the business of the
people, the engine of the prosperity Of
the nation, it seems to me almost an act
of cruelty to again disturb causolessly a
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, l said: Il am glad that tha'
question has no longer a part in the polit
ical consideration, and that craftsmanship
may now turn from it as the country has
} turned from questions Of slavery ant
WaE" But, alas the power Of the dark
/, ness oferror, the rcsurrectionists of falst
idea of the dead past have dug W
the remains of contention from peaceful
: graves where they slept, and threaten b.
: a rehash Of exploded resolutions, fermu
!, lated into a platform by a party conven.
I ton, to reyiyify apd agitate coptrpversie
which will %unsettle commercial values
hinder and delay the business energies q