Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1883 — RED HOT. [ARTICLE]

RED HOT.

Extracts from Ben Butler’s Speech to the Democratic Convention of Massachusetts. No Wonder the Republicans Want to Get Bid of Him—How They Disfranchise the Poor and Treat Their Prisoners. With every emotion of sensibility I receive your kind greeting. I have come obedient to the call of the convention, through your committee, to say a few words which may aid in your deliberations. By your appreciative kindness a year ago I was presented as your candidate for Governor to the suffrages of the Commonwealth. The people of the Commonwealth, all who were in favor of reform, of good-government, of the honor of the old Commonwealth so far as they were then instructed, ratified your nomination at the polls. It seemed to me that to a deliberative assembly, representing the roform element of the Commonwealth, that reform element which has always In every day and in every year had its seeds firmly planted in the Democratic heart, I should give some account of my stewardship. The tale may be dry and uninteresting, but it is necessary that at some time it should be spoken. I had intended to have given Rto you and to the people In a letter accepting your nomination If I had been away, but as it is you must bear the infliction. As you remember, I examined into the legislative work of the Commonwealth somewhat in my inaugural address to the Legislature. I recommended therein many changes, some wise,. I know—and some, for aught I know, may have been otherwise—but not one of those recommendations, no, not one, was passed by a Legislature of the Commonwealth which sat a longer time than any other Legislature ever sat before, and much longer, I hope, than any other will ever Bit again. Why, there were some recommendations so obvious that they didn’t even dare to consider them. I recommended them to pass a law protecting the passengers on railroads against the Insane, wicked and malicious attempts of those who would put obstructions upon the rails, which might be the cause of the slaughter of hundreds of innocent women. It was a recommendation from tho executive. Of course it would not pass. They had pretended for years, if the constitutional restriction didn’t bind them, they would be glad to relieve the people of the Commonwealth from paying a poll-tax as a qualification for suffrage. Their best orators had so declared. Their ablest men of the olden time—when they had able men—sp declared. In view of the general feeling that this anomaly, that a man's vote should depend upon his ability at one part of the year to pay in a sum of money, should be wiped away, and, to get rid of the constitutional defect, I advised a plan which would allow the Legislature to do what I supposed they would wish to do when they had an opportunity. They said they doubted Its constitutionality. Our friends in tho Legislature then said: “ Very good, let us put the question to the Supreme court” —a Supreme court of their own choosing, not mine, or there might have been a different choice. They refused it. That great question of the constitutional rights of the people they would not submit to the Supreme court. But they said: “We will have a proposition to amend the constitution.” They were not chary, however, in submitting questions to the Supreme court. When the third-rate lawyers that composed some of the committees of that Legislature thought that the executive had erred and did not know when he could or could not make a veto upon a measure, they rushed with that question to the Supreme court, and the answer you remember. Having then voted down legislative relief on that subject, they next proceeded to vote down any prospect to the people of a constitutional amendment, and so now the great Republican party with which I acted—and acted in goeffi faith in giving untrammelled suffrage to every negro In the South—denies it to their brothers on this soil. Going then a little furthor Into Legislative questions. They presented me several bills to sign—during the Legislative session nine or ten of them. I examined them, and found they were so loosely drawn and so incomplete that they didn’t even express what the men who drew them meant they should, and I said then to the Chairman of the Committee: “Do you really want this bill In this way? Don’t you see what It is? It is not what you wanted, if I can gather what you want from your bill. Now, I can veto this bill and everybody will see the intention, but this Is a good thing that you want now. Ask to have this bill sent back and I will send it back, and then you can change It and It will go through.” And I had to do that during the session top times over. Then they sent me all sorts of bills, and I vetoed them thirteen times, one after the other, and one was so bad that when It went back to them they couldn’t find but four Republicans mean enough to vote for it. And all the rest of the thirteen were sustained except one, and that was one on the last of the session, the purpose of which was to give their clerks and Sergeant-at-Arms increased pay. I have no trouble about my election; but I pray you, fellow-citizens, go home to your towns and send me some Legislators who know their own mind, and do not have to go to the Republican State committee to find out who they are. I don’t care what a man calls himself. If he calls himself a Democrat you know he Is right. If he calls himself a Republican, ten to one he Is right; but find out. Are you in favor of having legislation which will bring this Commonwealth back to where she was in the days of our fathers in economic administration, In efficiency of administration, and in purity of administration? If you can find such a man vote for him; let us have him in the Legislature, for, as I do not want anything wrong, I believe other men of fair mind, and who are not partisans, will agree with me in all administrative measures; and the reason why I so believe is that, while I have had eight gentlemen out of nine of my Executive Council who are very bitterly opposed to xne politically, and In my nomination of officers not unfrequently differed from me (after they had got their Instructions from the State committee), I have a right to say and do say—and they are here in town to contradict me if I am wrong—that upon all financial matters In regard to tho Commonwealth, there never has been one word of difference between us—not one. Therefore send me men to aid me, to hold up my hands. You know the Bible tells us that when a man grew old in battle ha had to have his hands held up. I have held up my own for a year all alone. Please, now, give me somebody to back me. Now let us come to some questions of administration. I have not done much, I agree. Would I could have done more. I found tho Governor in his office like Gulliver in the hands of the Lilliputians, with a pin at every hair of his head—and perhaps the reason they didn’t hold me any better was because I didn’t have any more hair on my head. I found the office emasculated. Not only the Governor was unable to do anything, evefl to appoint the colored messenger at his door, without the advice and consent of his Council, but, with one or two exceptions, he could remove nobody, and (so far as the ingenuity of Republican lawyers and the laws could go) they didn’t mean to let him do anything else. I want to say In all fairness—because I want to be fair if I know how—that, while many of my predecessors were not had men at all, yet the found themselves in these Legislative tolls, spread about them by the Commissioners, who actually governed this Commonwealth, and they didn’t see any way to get through them, because it would require them to break with their party. The first institution to which I was obliged to turn my attention was the State’s prison. It was in this condition. The men were in a state of revolt, and had been for six months. We were told that they were dangerous, unless seventy-five or 100 of them were.kept in solitary confinement, or chained up by the hands to posts; that there was danger in that institution; that it could not be carried on without these measures, and my predecessor had instructed the Warden of the institution to do what he pleased with these men. I heard their complaints, and considered them.

I gave directions that their statements should be allowed to come to me without anybody’s seeing what was in the letter. 1 said to the Warden: “Do that, sir, and then you shall have a hearing on every complaint if you desire it.” Weeks passed and he did nothing. I saw him again and said to him: “ Sir, my orders are generally obeyed. Those men must have leave to write to me. Let them write, seal it up and send it to me sealed, and don’t make any mistake about this.” He replied: “Well, you will have little else to do than read complaints.” I thought that was very wonderful. It seemed to me that he had given himself away by that very saying. I said to him: “I have clerks, and I will have more if necessary, and I can take care of my own correspondence. Let them come.” He brought me in a large number of sealed letters, sent to his office by inmates, to be forwarded to me, unsealed and read by somebody, and then sealed up again and sent to me as though they had not been unsealed; and they did it so bunglingly that it didn't require even an old lawyer to see it. I took those letters into my Council Chamber; I showed them to the Council; I stated the facts as I have stated them to you, and I said, “ Examine these letters, and if they have not been tampered with I will beg Warden Earle’s pardon." And out he went. The Legislature appointed a committee to investigate him and one to see why I turned him out; but, for some reason which you will appreciate without any words of mine, that committee never had a meeting. The investigation never has taken place and never will. I should be happy—l will turn away from this canvass—to attend that investigating committee, read those letters to the Commonwealth, and hear the story of those men—of the cruelties, oppression and wrongs. I know they are convicts. I know they are bad men. But they are men who are under the protection of the law just as much as you and I. They are bound to go to the State prison, there to work at hard labor for a term of years—nothing more, nothing less. They are not there to be maltreated, to be whipped, to be hung up without trial and without the knowledge of somebody, any more than you or I are. Well, I thought that would meet the commendation of all good men. But I learned that while that was a good action, it came from a bad motive —my motive was to secure their votes. I then looked about for somebody for the office of Warden, who would make the prison what a Massachusetts prison should be, and I sent for one of my personal friends, who was then kindly engaged in an enterprise of great moment to me, and I begged him to accept the office, dropping my enterprise. He demurred somewhat. I I asked it of him as a personal favor to go there and redeem that State Institution, and he did, and was unanimously confirmed by a Republican Counoil. And In closing this subject let me say he walks through that prison day by day, quite without guard and without weapons, as safe as I can walk around this convention, where there are thousands of kind hearts and strong hands to protect me here from any harm. The nest thing to which I turned my attention was the Insurance Department. I became convinced upon evldenoe that there was something wrong. I entered into a laborous investigation of that evidence. I summoned before me the Insuranoe Commissioner. I was instantly attacked upon that, and while I was so attacked, while the investigation was going on, the Secretary of State came to me and said: “ Governor, it is made your duty by custom to issue a fast-day proclamation.” I * said, “Mr. Secretary, I am exceedingly busy. I don’t see how I can sit down and write one.” It was a new species of writing to mo, but a thought ocoured to me. Now, I will sete whether it is simply an honest or a factious opposition to mo. I won’t write one myself. I went back and looked over the proclamations of many of my worthy predecessors. I found Christopher Gore, who was a lawyer, a very pious and devoted man, strange as that may be. A Senator from Massachusetts, he gave Gore Hall to Havard College. Now I said this man’s proclamation will just suit every true man and true Christian In the Commonwealth—and it justs suits me. Only there Is one thing that has happened since Gore’s time, about which I think something better be said, and that was that the preachers, forgeting the origin of that to a Massachusetts man almost holy day, had been accustomed of late ts> use It for political sermons and for all mannor of talk, except religion. And so I put In this sentence substantially: “I do exhort the ministers on that day to feed their flocks with God’s divine words.” I then scratched out Gore's name and put In “Benjamin P. Butler,” and issued it. I watched with curiosity to see how that would be taken. To my utter astonishment the whole press fell afoul of It. It was had grammar, bad religion, had politics, had everything. I didn’t say anything, but waited for fast day. I thought the clergymen would know a good thing when they saw it. But some of tho clergymen read it to their congregations In a sing-song, derisive tone; others thought it so bad they wouldn’t read it all. Others attacked me personally, and I was especially amused by one gentleman in Boston who said that the Governor for the first time had signed himself Governor and Commander-in-Chief, and that that meant If he didn’t obey me that I would come down upon him with my soldiers. But old pher Gore signed himself Governor and Commander-in-Chief precisely as I did. I didn’t after that. And the reason why he Is Governor and Commander-in-Chief is that he speaks in proclamation to all the people, speaking in his civil capacity to the citizens of the Commonwealth and in his military capacity to any forces that may be under his command. I then became convinced that nothing that I could do would please my opponents, and I set about pleasing myself. When I called upon the Insurance Commissioner he wanted time to finish his reports. I said: “I will give you time to finish your fire report.” He was called upon to make a fight by his political associates, but he did not, to their surprise and astonishment, because I could not appoint his successor without the ratification of the Council. Why didn’t he make a fight when he had a right to keep in until his successor was appointed? Simply becauso he knows the reason, and I know the reason. He has been writing a letter lately, and whenever he will write a letter asking me to tell the reason, I will. But I will keep it back now for the sake of his family. Well, then, what did we find in the Insurance Department? Corruption to the very bottom. If there is any more important thing in this Government than that, 1 do not know what it is. We old men Insure our lives in order that those who are dependent upon us may have something after death. The young men in business insure their property and their lives for their own benefit and those who come after them. We creditors have to lend money sometimes, almost the only security upon which is the life insurance' of an honest young man, who, wo believe, will pay us if ho lives and we can Insure ourselves when he dies. The standard of Massachusetts, according to the laws, is higher than any other standard. We require more security, more accurate accounts, more thorough examination, than any other State, and those examinations are required by law to be made very often. I found that those examinations had not been made for years. I found Insuranoe companies that were doing business In this State —foreign companies—that had not been examined for years. I found in the insurance reports many companies eulogized and puffed as being the very best companies to do business with, which not only had not been examined, but some of them had actually failed immediately after those puffs were giveH. I attempted m get a friend who knew about Insurance (I don’t know much myself) appointed. But the Council said no. I then appointed a sterling Democrat whom you all know. All I ask of you is to read John K. Tarbox’s report on these things and then any honest man may vote as he pleases. Again, I found the Woman’s prison in an entirely unsatisfactory condition. I sent and begged another of my friends—a lady of Massachusetts, whom I had seen amid tho smoke of guns and tho bursting of shells, attending the wounded in the field—to do me the personal favor of taking charge of that InstiWon. And,after great deal of persuasion on my part and reflection on hors, she did take charge. And I was but yesterday at that prison with my Council, and I know that I only voice their sentiment when I toll you It is in a thorough condition and under a process of economy that will Bave some SIO,OOO within the year to the Commonwealth.