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WATSON’S EDITORIALS
Mi*
Ben Butler's Old Clothes.
In the year 1884, the New York corpora
tions ran Grover Cleveland for President. By
working the name “Democrat” for all it was
worth, they elected him. The consequence
was that the country had a President who
was less of a Democrat than any who had
filled the position since the Civil War.
In the year 1884, Benjamin Butler “also
ran.”
This cock-eyed person from Massachusetts
was a marvelous mixture of good and bad,
greatness and littleness, genius and quack
ery.
Previous to the Civil War he was a Dem
ocrat. lie attended the Charleston Conven
tion, where the great historic organization of
Andrew Jackson went to pieces. When the
war broke out became a soldier. Picturesque
rather than effective as a soldier, he was
about to be dismissed from the service when
he boldly went to Gen. Grant and had a pri
vate conversation with the Commander-in
chief. What passed will never be known, but
the cock-eyed man was not dismissed.
At New Orleans he won infamous notori
ety on account of his order authorizing his
soldiers to treat as a common prostitute any
white lady who should behave offensively to
a soldier, in speech or manner.
This was probably the most odious and
disgraceful order ever issued by a command
ing general.
But, at the same time, Gen. Butler showed
New Orleans how to keep clean and healthy;
therefore, even at New Orleans, he mixed the
good with the bad.
After the war. he again took his old place
at the head of the American Bar. and did ar
immense practice. His revenues were .prince
ly and he spent them like a prince. Warm
hearted, open-handed Charity never had a
sincerer devotee than “Old Pen Butler.”
After awhile, he ran for Governor of Mas
sachusetts—and, oh, : liow the Boston aris
tocracy did throw fits!
Calling the rag-tag and bob-tail to his ban
ner —as Jefferson and Jackson :had done —
Gen. Butler unhorsed the blue-bloods of Bos
ton, and wallowed them around in the sand
bed “scandalous.”
As soon as he had been sworn in. Governor
Butler began to uncover frauds, rascalities,
barbarities and what not that had been in
practice under his predecessors. Yea, verily,
there was a high old stir and crash in the
bric-a-brac department while this irreverent
bull was in the china closet.
My recollection is that Butler overhauled
a charitable establishment known as the
Tewksbury Almshouse. The evidence, as I
recollect, tended to show that this Almshouse
bad been run on a svstem of inhumanity
which made Dickens’ pictures of Do-the
boy’s Hall and similar institutions in Eng
land appear quite heavenly.
Unless my memory is playing me a mean
trick, one of the things Butler proved was that
human hides had been tanned for use as
leather in this New England Charity shop.
All of the foregoing merely goes to show
that Butler was a man of wide human sym
pathies. He was a man of the people. He
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took the part of the under-dog. When the
whole country was frothing at the mouth
against the alleged Chicago Anarchists—
Parsons, Spies, etc —Butler was not afraid
to declare that they had not had a fair trial;
and he pleaded their case before the Supreme
Court of the United States.
He was a Union Labor champion in the
days when Union Labor was in its babyhood.
It is grown, now, and sometimes abuses its
power—prone to forget its fearless friends in
time of need —but Gen. Butler threw the
whole of his strength to it from the first, as
Wendell Phillips did.
So, in 1884, he ran for President on a peo
ple’s platform. The laboring classes urged
him to present their case at the bar of Amer
ican Public Opinion, and the great lawyer
consented.
What was Ben Butler’s platform in 1884?
One of its most prominent planks is that
upon which Roosevelt now stands, and which
Bryan thinks he originated.
Butler’s platform denounces both the Dem
ocratic and Republican parties for those poli
cies which have sanctioned and permitted
the establishment of monopolies.
What monopolies?
Railroad nonopoly, money monopoly and
other gigantic monopolies.
Said the Butlerites:
“We demand such government action as
may be necessary to take from such monopo
lies the powers they have so corruptly
usurped and restore them to the people TO
WHOM THEY BELONG.”
Again,
“We demand Congressional regulation of
Inter-State Commerce.” So declared the
Butlerites in 1884.
Yet, President Roosevelt is gravely ac
cused of stealing political raiment from Mr.
Bryan!
Where was Theodore Roosevelt when Gen.
B. F. Butler was addressing monster mass
meetings in New York in favor of smashing
monopolies, restoring to the people what the
corporations had usurped, and demanding na
tional rate regulation?
Why, young Roosevelt had just been serv
ing as a Republican delegate to the National
Convention which nominated Blaine.
Young Theodore, ardent and enthusiastic,
may have been one of those who widely
cheered Bob Ingersoll’s famous “Plumed
Knight” speech.
Why “Plumed Knight”?
Because Blaine had made such gallant
speeches in Congress against “Rebel Briga
diers” and other similar “defamers of his
country I”
Wherefore—endless cheering for Blaine.
Doubtless young Teddy whooped with the
rest, long and uproariously.
And where was Bryan in 1884? Trying to
practice law in Jacksonville, 111, and not
making a success of it.
In 1884. all the odds were against Butler,
but he made a good fight. Had he been given
a fair hearing there’s no telling what his vote
might have been. But he didn’t get a fair
hearing Pioneer reformers rareh do. Only
the politicians who reap, where the minority
advance-guard sowed, ever get a fair hearing.
Butler’s meetings were broken up, wher
ever it could be done. Democrats and Re
publicans dropped their academic differences
when it came to howling him down. Such
dangerous doctrine as his must be knocke
out of the ring, at all events.
Vainly did he appeal to the country on <
platform which declared:
“We denounce stock-watering, discrimina
tions in rates and charges, and demand that
Congress correct these abuses.”
He was howled down, knocked out, run
over.
But where is Roosevelt NOW?
Standing on Ben Butler’s platform of
1884!
And where is Bryan?
Riveted to the Ben Butler platform!
But Mr. Bryan, oy continual reference to
“My Madison Square Garden speech,” evi
dently has brought himself to believe that he
said something fierce in that speech—some
thing that was very advanced and radical, in
deed —because he expressed himself as favor
ing “ultimate Government ownership of the
railroads.”
Why, that is in the Ben Butler platform of
1884.
Listen: “We demand that Congress shall
cortect these abuses, even if necessary by the
construction of national railroads.”
' r hat is the same principle, of course.
The moment the Government should begin
the construction of national railroads, the
privately owned railroads would go down on
their knees, praying: “Don’t, for God’s sake,
don’t build national roads competitive to ours;
BUY OURS, and let us out!”
Anybody can see that.
n
Therefore, the literal truth is that the Mad
ison Square Garden platform of Mr. Bryan
does not go a step further than that of the
great Massachusetts lawyer, who stood ’forth
for the same principles in 1884.
Both Roosevelt and Bryan are wearing
Ben Butler’s old clothes.
Here is a paragraph from Bro. Tibbie’s
paper, The Investigator:
“Watson’s support of Hoke Smith in Geor
gia is proving to be the act of .wise states
manship. Governor Smith made a speech in
Cincinnati the other day that sent terror to
the hearts of the Southern Plutocrats. It was
not long after Tom Watson and Hoke Smith
got after J. Pierpont Morgan that that old
railroad, steel trust and bank pirate began to
sniff trouble in the air and he hied himself
down to Washington to see the President.
Georgia is going to throw off the Morgan
rule and the work will begin as soon as the
Watson-Hoke Smith legislature assembles in
June.”
M M H
A taunt flung by a king of France at a king
of England was the cause of a bloody war be
tween those two nations.
It is well known that an insulting gibe of
Frederick the Great at Madame de Pompa
dour was the motive which inspired that en
raged Mistress of the Bourbon King when
she prevailed upon her royal lover to thrust
France into the Seven Years War.
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