The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-30

Phineas Fletcher in St. Paul Pioneer
 Press.
 Apparently no one wants the vice pres idency. Why is 1t? If, fin point of honor. the presidency is the first of all elective offices in the world and very nearly the greatest in point of actual power, sure- iy the one that comes next to 1t is a prize worthy of the loftiest ambition. But such does not seem to be the fact In both political parties there is a good sized battalion of men who declare in advance that they would not accept 1t. As a rule, it is the only thing in the way of public life that the majority of them have ever been known to decline.
 That any man should regard the vice presidency as beneath him argues one of two things-that he either has an over whelming opinion of his own abilities or that his private designs for his own ad- vancemHnt are of that nature which gem orally end in compassing their own de- feat. The late General Benjamin Frank lin Butler of Massachusetts belonged to the latter class. It is pretty well known historical fact that in 1864 he could have had the Republican nomination for the vice presidency on the ticket with the immortal Lincoln and that he rejected 1t with a scorn which was infinitely anus IO SOfn6 OI the great IcducTS OI Lne party at the time. General Butler at that point in his stormy kaleidoscopic career had mapped out his own political future on lines which he believed could not fail to make him the successor of the great emancipator and savior of the Union.
 General Butler Rejected it.
 His theory was that before the end of MT. Lincoln's second term the war Democrats. who had acted with the Re- publican party, would return to their old-time political affiliations and that in order to hold them in line the Republi- cans would be compelled to put in nomi- nation for the presidency war Demo- crat with a military record and one who was at the same time a politician, or as he would probably say, statesman. And, surveying the field. he saw no one but himself who could meet all the re- Quirements of the prospective situation. It never occurred to him ithat he might have a rival in the man who was des- tined to receive the capitulations of the chivalric leader of the Confectionery But if he did he put the thought away as absurd. What did the rough western sol- dier know about government and states manship? How could the Summers and the Chases, the Stantons and the Sew ards, the Fessendens and the Trumbulls and the rest of the long roll of intellect
 
 who had never been tried except on the battlefield, whom few of them knew even by sight and whose political beliefs were known only to himself and his staff of- ficers, perhaps not even to them. It was preposterous. But that was what time and fate had in their keeping. Many blunders did Butler make in war as well as in peace, but that political miscalcu- lation was the very greatest of them all so far as he was concerned. And years after that a still greater New Englandei missed the splendid office In the same way.
 Great Men Held Position.
 Many of the most illustrious names in the history of the republic are to be found in the list of the second executive officers of the nation. Before called to il not a few of them had occupied the high est ofice of State. They had served as ministers at foreign courts and in the governoshIp of States, were great figures , both in the Senate. the House of Repre- sentatives and the cabinet None of thees men. whose titles to preeminence cannot be questions. disdalnedf the office. as some gentlemen in both parties at the present time with very ltte more than a local reputation affect to do. Their re- | fusaIs are rcall. very ridiculous.