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.