Los Angeles herald., 1893-01-12
DEATH OF GENERAL BUTLER.

r
lie in General Buffers death. He
leaves no prototype, nor did he ever
have any. Other men there have been
amongst us who were quite as conspicu-
Gus at times and just as bold OF speech
and action; but they were never able to
fill up lifetims with the picturesque
and spectacular as was quite possible
with General Butler. 1t may be he did
not study how to appear dramatic, but
he did SO constantly, and all the while
without having the fecvor of a deep
sentiment or any other controlling force
apparent to the public. He was an
enigma even to his friends, and that
continually.
Az student in the little Maine col
lege, and as a half-fedged lawyer in
Lowell, he was often in strife that made
him known, and won following that
applauded if it did not always approve
what he did. He never felt compelled
to be consistent throughout long
course of action, nor did his frequent
changes of front seem to hurt him as
they must have done most men. In
1850 he scoffed at the moderate Demo-
Gratis in the party to which he belonged,
and boldly led the extreme wing
OF a divided political family. He
actually voted once or twice for
Jefferson Davis in the Charleston con-
vention. A few months later he was
in Baltimore at the head of Massa-
chusetts regiment encouutering rebel
bullets and cheers for JEFF Davis. Four
months later than that he was organic
ing the New England military depart
ment, and in the following spring fol-
lowed Farragut from Ship island up the
river to New Orleans, where he hung
Mumiord for hauling down the Ameri-
can flag from the mint, paralyzed his
old Democratic acquaintances with
threats to hang them, too, taught the
people. how to clean a city and keep out
yellow fever, and when citizens COM
mittee begged him not to fire upon the
town from his gunboats in case there
should be an outbreak, he calmly told
them that when they settled that town
it belonged to the alligators, and if a
hand was lifted against his little garri-
son, from within or without, they would
have it back again
With varying fortunes in various
fields, General Butler went through the
war. His friends he helped as no man
before ever stood by friends, while his
enemies he followed without mercy for
twenty-five years, and then embalmed
them in his book, whose claims to be in
the main truthful cannot easily be de-
feated nor belittled. And when the war
was over, and the era of reconstruction
came on, he went to Washington through
the grace OF congressional district in
which he never lived, and there took up
the fight against the south where the
old Abolitionists and the founders OF
the Republican party had laid it down.
He became possessed of ku-klux
garb and took it upon the platform with
him on a stumping tour. He advocated
force bill 80, extreme and cruel that
Speaker Blaine left his chair to go down
upon the floor of the house and make
the most impassioned speech of his life
against the measure.
Out of congress he determined to fill
one more position, the only one, he de-
clared, that he ever really longed for,
that of governor of Massachusetts. In
this ambition, after two terrific battles,
he won notable popular victory as
Democrat but, Of course, getting help
from all parties. His year in the guber-
material Office was full of surprises.
Many wholesome shakings up were adj
ministered amongst the state institu-
tions and, Thoughts little OF the generals
way of doing things would 60 long
way with the people of the old Bay
state, it is not likely that anybody ever
seriously regretted that they had given
the old man chance" as the phrase
went.
What will be the final cumming up of
his character and deservings by critics
in the future is not clear; nor does it
much matter, for the public have gauged
these pretty accurately. They will
think OF him as a tremendous intellect
ual force in public affairs and will give
him credit for doing many things it were
not easy to expect of any other public
man, though of finer mould than he.
He had, in the main, great framework
of hearty and manly purpose; and if
some Of the virtues were not brought
out in detail, as Cicero said Of his en-
emy, it is none the less something to be
admired. 1t will be easy to forget his
vagaries or lightly paes them over, while
the example of his SURPRISING power of
achievement will be lasting lnspira-
tion.