In the convention of 1884, which met at Chicago, we had a veritable
monkey-and-parrot time. It was next after the schism in Congress
between the Democratic factions led respectively by Carlisle and
Randall, Carlisle having been chosen Speaker of the House over Randall.
Converse, of Ohio, appeared in the Platform Committee representing
Randall, and Morrison, of Illinois, and myself, representing Carlisle.
I was bent upon making Morrison chairman of the committee. But it was
agreed that the chairmanship should be held in abeyance until the
platform had been formulated and adopted. The subcommittee to whom the
task was delegated sat fifty-one hours without a break before its work
was completed. Then Morrison was named chairman. It was arranged
thereafter between Converse, Morrison and myself that when the agreed
report was made, Converse and I should have each what time he required
to say what was desired in explanation, I to close the debate and move
the previous question. At this point General Butler sidled up. “Where
do I come in?” he asked.
“You don’t get in at all, you blasted old sinner,” said Morrison.
“I have scriptural warrant,” General Butler said. “Thou shalt not
muzzle the ox that treadeth the corn.”
“All right, old man,” said Morrison, good-humoredly, “take all the time
you want.”
In his speech before the convention General Butler was not at his
happiest, and in closing he gave me a particularly good opening. “If
you adopt this platform of my friend Watterson,” he said, “God may help
you, but I can’t.”
I was standing by his side, and, it being my turn, he made way for me,
and I said: “During the last few days and nights of agreeable, though
rather irksome, intercourse, I have learned to love General Butler, but
I must declare that in an option between him and the Almighty I have a
prejudice in favor of God.”
In his personal intercourse, General Butler was the most genial of men.
The subcommittee in charge of the preparation of a platform held its
meetings in the drawing-room of his hotel apartment, and he had
constituted himself our host as well as our colleague. I had not
previously met him. It was not long after we came together before he
began to call me by my Christian name. At one stage of the proceedings
when by substituting one word for another it looked as though we might
reach an agreement, he said to me: “Henry, what is the difference
between ‘exclusively for public purposes’ and ‘a tariff for revenue
only’?”
“I know of none,” I answered.
“Do you think that the committee have found you out?”
“No, I scarcely think so.”
“Then I will see that they do,” and he proceeded in his peculiarly
subtle way to undo all that we had done, prolonging the session
twenty-four hours.
He was an able man and a lovable man. The missing ingredient was
serious belief. Just after the nomination of the Breckinridge and Lane
Presidential ticket in 1860, I heard him make an ultra-Southern speech
from Mr. Breckinridge’s doorway. “What do you think of that?” I asked
Andrew Johnson, who stood by me, and Johnson answered sharply, with an
oath: “I never like a man to be for me more than I am for myself.” I
have been told that even at home General Butler could never acquire the
public confidence. In spite of his conceded mentality and manliness he
gave the impression of being something of an intellectual sharper.
He was charitable, generous and amiable. The famous New Orleans order
which had made him odious to the women of the South he had issued to
warn bad women and protect good women. Assuredly he did not foresee the
interpretation that would be put upon it. He was personally popular in
Congress. When he came to Washington he dispensed a lavish hospitality.
Such radical Democrats as Beck and Knott did not disdain his company,
became, indeed, his familiars. Yet, curious to relate, a Kentucky
Congressman of the period lost his seat because it was charged and
proven that he had ridden in a carriage to the White House with the
Yankee Boanerges on a public occasion.