The Evening critic., 1884-08-19
BEN BUTLER SPEAKS FOR BEN.


TO come out ofthe woods and issue his pro.
nunciamento, General Butler has put forth
his letters accepting the Presidential nomi-
nations Of tho Greenback, Labor aud anti.
Monopolist parties. lie gives an account of
his stewardship of
The Four Political Interests with
which re was Charged.
These he Classics as follows (1) Hostility
TO all monopolies (2) the preservation of
the legal-tender currency; (3) the needs of
all who labor to be protected against con.
sumers and on-producers (4) the reform
and correction Of abuses in government, SO
that its pressure shall be as light as posi-
BILE upon the people, so that the rights of
American citizens at home and abroad may
be guarded ; to mako public servants, indi-
vidual or incorporate, subservient to the
use and will of the people only, SO as to re-
store the prosperity of the country, with
equal rights, equal burdens, equal powers
and equal privileges of all people.
These charges were commended to him
by tho Democratic masses of Massachusetts,,
TO whom he alone owes duty. He owes no
duty to any Democratic organization what
over. If these principles had been cord-
ally received and adopted by tho Demo
cratic Convention at Chicago, he would
have permitted his name to DO presented to
that body for the suffrages of the people rs
their Chief Executive. He gives an &C.
count of
His Efforts 10 Secure the Adoption
of His Platform,
which, as a minority of one, no presented to
the convention from the Platform Commit
tee. That was no new position for him.
~ had held that position twenty four years
before in the Charleston convention of 1860:
and there / was obliged by my convictions
TO differ from both sides. then presented
second minority report of one, which was
adopted by the convention"
From the hour that the committee re-
fused to accept his tariff and internal reve-
nuo views, any candidature on his part be-
Came impossible
Reference is made with unaccustomed
gentleness to his treatment while making
that memorable midnight speech before the
convention, and the hurry to get to noml-
mating. This sentence is Clipped in in
italics: "And such a convention has been
called a deliberate body" In the platform,
as adopted, there were certain sweet phrases
used to foreign-bo citizens. There were
certain honeyed words, over and over re-
peated, in order that their repetition might
seem like earnest advocacy put in favor of
labor and upon some Of the topics of our
platform. But every claim of tho anti
Monopolist and Greenback and laboringmon
was contemptuously rejected or smothered
by platltudes. There should have been an
explicit platform. The people want to
know what the Democrats will do should
they come into power. Can the people
trust the Democratic party upon
A Shifting, Evasive aud Deceptive
Platforms
Tho Republican party also gets raps from
General Butler. There is no necessity to
look at its platform, for by their fruits
Eye shall know them" In its inception
that party was emphatically the party of
the people. But it has fallen. 1t has be-
come the party of monopolists, and, claim
ing to protect labor, it only protects CAPT.
tai. When II was as poor as were the dele
gates who framed the Declaration of indie
pendence it was the peoples party; but the
immense fortunes almost necessarily grow
ing out Of the vast expenditures of the war
fell into the hands of men who attached
themselves to tho party that fed them and
monopolized industries and enterprises.
Protected capital has
Imported Cheap Labor.
These laborers can and for a time do live
upon what would starve the American
nottingham Improved machinery en-
ablcs manufacturers TO employ female
labor. Thus the wives and sisters of the
workingman arc made tho instrument of
lowering his own rate Of wages. Certainly
this is not profitable to themselves, to their
fathers and husbands, or to the country.
Women's labor is employed in manufac.
tories at very much less price than mems
labor, even that poor quality of mems labor
imported from abroad, while women aud
even children can do that class of labor
equally we'll with the best of men. These
wrongs faint tho very blood of the people
No wife or mother from whom the child must
receive largely its mental endowment was
intended by the Almighty to spend her
young years or mature age in standing for
many hours day behind q counter or con-
fined in attending machine.
II the laboring woman had the ballot she
would be able, with tho assistance of her hus.
band, father and brother, to right this great
wrong, but being denied II, she becomes vir.
tually elave.
Employ women II you will and must, but let
II be at The same remunerative wages when
they do the same work as men, 80 that they
may at the earliest moment release them
selves from thraldom.
A tariff which gives protection to capital
on the ground that thereby American labor
may be protected, has too often resulted
but in the enhancement of the profits of
capital. The first object IN levying duties
is to protect labor.
The laboring classes have nothing to ex.
pect from the Republican party. There
never has been honesty and power enough
in the Republican administration to en-
force the eight-hour law. Congress ought
to grant aid to the families of laboring men
in the cities to settle upon the public lands
Let Congress spend half of the vast sum,
s3O,OOO,O0 now appropriated for the Army
in
Organizing the MILITIA Under the
Authority of the States,
and we shall have military force reliable
in every emergency. In the matters OF
finance there Is nothing more to expect
OF the Republican party than of tho Demo
cratic. The bankers and capitalists of both
parties working together have controlled
the. financial legislation of the Nation. The
result is plainly shown in the many en-
barIassments and failures. The Greenback-
ers furnish remedy for our financial ills.
Congress should mako an inter. convertible
bond at low rate OF interest, to be issued by
Inc Government, so that any man might In.
vest IN II Instead OF placing his money In saw
lnes banks or trust companies 10 be loaned out
on margins on killing stocks, and then lost
When no called for II. That bond bearing
ihree and slxty-hvo one.hundredths per cent.
interest, to be presented by the holder at any
llme 10 tho Treasury, and legal tenders TO be
Issued for H., and thus the Interest to that
amount OF the National debt accrues 10 the
government Instead OF being paid by II from
the taxes OF the people. And then when an
other bond was desired by tho investor ono
terest thereon begin.
Every hnencier knows that It is the odd fifty
millions Withdrawn or put out that makes n
redundancy or scarcity OF circulating medium;