The altercation became a warm
one, and Butler must have been very angry, for he grew red in the face
and danced about the platform as if the boards were hot under his feet.
The audience greeted both speakers with applause and hisses.
It was a decided advantage for General Butler that there were three other
candidates in the field; but both Sumner and Wilson brought their
influence to bear against him, and this, with Sanborn's telling
editorials, would seem to have decided his defeat; for when the final
struggle came at the Worcester Convention the vote was a very close one
and a small matter might have changed it in his favor.
The difference between Sumner and the administration, in 1872, on the San
Domingo question accomplished what Phillips and Butler were unable to
effect. Frank Bird and Sumner's more independent friends left the club,
which was then dining at Young's Hotel, and seceded to the Parker House,
where Sumner joined them not long afterwards. Senator Wilson and the more
deep-rooted Republicans formed a new organization called the
Massachusetts Club, which still existed in the year 1900.
The great days of the Bird Club were over. With the death of Sumner, in
1874, its political importance came to an end, and although its members
continued to meet for five or six years longer, it ceased to attract
public attention.
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