Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1884-08-05
Aancaster fnteIli9encer.
TUESDAY nvENINa, AUGUST 9. 1894
A Beautiful Picture

The admiration of the New Y ork Sun
for General Butler is very beautiful to
see. It is so charming to find that love
such as this can 90 but from man to
man. Butler Is more charming to Dana
than auything--a greater Joy even than
his chickens. He is altogether lovely in
his eyes and even altogether virtuous,
Now virtue and Butler, in the general
understanding are not held to be one and
inseparable, as they are In the Suns
Butler has been accused cfspoon stealing,
although he says that is a lie, and we be-
lieve ourselves that it is. So far as we
know the general Is honest to common
intent In general. We do not know that
he would steal more than the average
man probably he would not steal as
much, as he has no occasion to do so,
at least at present, since he is in the en-
joyment of large fortune and yacht
and such things. We are ready to be
lieve that he made his fortune fairly,
knowing nothing to the contrary, and on
the whole, we would let the Suns allie
CATION that the general is the most vir
tuous of men, pass unchallenged so far
as his honesty is concerned despite the
spoon story, and the general air that
hangs around him Of the hard case but
the SIN claims much more than this for
its cbrysalis presidential candidate. 1t
says that he does not lie and is free from
the taint of all manner of guile. To
quote its words literally, in his can
vas for president, there will be
no false pretense" and "no scandals
affecting the personal character of the
candidate" We hesitate to believe all
Of this statement. We know General
Butler as man of infinite guile and as
fond Of romance as of poetry. True, he
is bold, and not sneaking in his style of
reaching for what he wants; but we
greatly fear that he is not wholly and
solely addicted to absolutely moral
ways Of comprising his ends. We have
v ry great doubt whether General Butler
would be selected by anyone, other than
the Suns editor, as the model of virtue
or whether he will 80 shine in history
any more conspcuously than he does in
his daily life.
The general has now reached a mature
age, and possibly no scandal touching
his personal relations still lives TO shake
its CORY looks at him in his canvass, as
the Sun believes, and in this he is
more fortunate than his rivals, Cleye-
land and Blaine, neither of whom the
Sun intimates are up to par in personal
purity. We doubt, however, whether
General Butler will be much obliged to
his friend for thus eXonerating him
from the weakness of humanity, 10
which it thinks his rivals have fallen
victims. And the sun, furthermore
puts its candidate In very embarrassing
position in declaring substantially and
in the same sentence, that he is wholly
guiltless of false pretense and fOrnica-
tion. Assuming that the general ever
was guilty of the latter Offense, he will
be guilty of the former in conducting his
canvass on the platform of purity which
the Sun sets up for him aud In an ag-
gravated form, too, If he casts stones
against his rivals for their sin. But if the
general really concludes to conduct his
campaign on the Suns platform we shall
be very much astonished. lie might not
be deferred by the false pretense neces-
sarily involved in it, but he certainly
would not be SO rash as to drive over to
the standards of his opponents all the
male voters of the country who would
have the fellow feeling with them that
would make them wondrous kind, and
bring them 10 the polls under their
banners in very animated way, We do
not think that General Butler desires to
be left in the company of the select few
to which the San has inconsiderately,
and, we have no doubt, falsely assigned
him.