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Our Classmate, able, likeable, versatile, <em>Butler Ames</em> answered his “Last Roll Call,” November 7, 1954, in the eighty-third year of his eventful career.</p>
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Grandson of Brigadier General Benjamin F. Butler and son of Major General Adelbert Ames and Blanche Butler Ames, he felt the “Call of Country” pounding in his veins.</p>
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In response to the call after graduation from Lowell High School and Phillips Exeter Academy Butler entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where we, his classmates, came to know him intimately. I remember Butler most vividly as End on our first West Point football team. Though inexperienced, like all the other members of that first raw group, Butler, about 165 pounds of hard West Point muscle, put up a gallant battle to prevent the enemy from turning his flank. Shrimp, runt, featherweight, I could participate only by racing along the side lines, shouting my admiration for the more physically favored and yearning, in vain, to be like them. We graduated in June 1894, fifty-four out of the original one hundred and four who began that fearsome academic grind four years before. Butler finished well up in the class though not a star.</p>
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“Not a war cloud on the horizon” vociferated the Wishful Thinkers. “War has been discarded as an instrument of International Policy!” Except for the suppression of Indian uprisings not a shot had been fired in America in battle since the close of the Civil War. Butler’s family was prominent in Industry in his native State, Massachusetts, distinguished for its Great Leaders and its splendid contributions to the Armed Forces which won the Revolutionary War. It was now enjoying profound peace and high prosperity.</p>
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In response to family urgency, Butler resigned shortly after graduation, took the course in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated in 1896, marshal of his class. The City of Lowell elected him an Alderman and started him on his distinguished political career. In 1897 he was elected Representative in the Massachusetts General Court from Lowell.</p>
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In spite of wishful thinking war clouds were gathering. Cuba, at our very doorstep, was again aflame with revolution to win her freedom from Spain. Butler reorganized Battery A, State Guard in Boston as its First Lieutenant and began his preparations for service as a civilian soldier. Significantly, the Professor of Law at West Point, a veteran of the Civil War, had cautioned in one of his lectures: “If I read aright the signs of the times, some of you young men who sit before me will shed your blood on the battle fields of your Country.” It sounded ominous but unrealistic. Yet strained relationships with Spain arising from her ruthless efforts to crush the Insurrection against her authority suddenly reached a crisis when the battleship Maine was blown up and sunk in Havana Harbor. Emotion far more than ascertained facts fixed the responsibility on the tottering kingdom of Spain. Our little Regular Army totaling about 25,000 officers and men began concentration on Tampa and other seaports on our Southern Border. While concentration was in progress, Congress declared war on Spain. True to his training and tradition, Butler became First Lieutenant of the Sixth Massachusetts U.S. Volunteers and, as such, sailed for Puerto Rico to participate in the campaign against Spain. At the request of his superior officers, Regimental and Brigade, he was promoted to the grade of Lieutenant Colonel. The enemy resistance in Puerto Rico was soon broken. The assault of General Shatter’s army on El Caney and San Juan Heights, Cuba, on July 1st, 1898, was a complete victory for the American Army but the forecast of the Professor of Law at the Military Academy was fulfilled; among the dead on that victorious battlefield were two of our classmates—Sater and L. H. Lewis; others had been wounded.</p>
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Butler returned unhurt from the equally successful campaign in Puerto Rico. His service in Puerto Rico had enhanced his reputation and justified his military traditions. The people of Massachusetts indorsed him. Butler was elected a member of Congress of the United States from the 5th Congressional District and held that distinguished office from 1903 to 1913. It was in recognition of service rendered that Governor Coolidge, during World War I, appointed Butler Major General of the Massachusetts National Guard. Our classmate had attained the highest military rank attainable by a civilian soldier, a grade equal that won by his distinguished father during the Civil War.</p>
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Butler now took the most interesting step of his very interesting career. On June 25, 1914 he married Miss Fifille Willis of Columbia, Missouri. Together they spent many happy years in Boston and Tewksbury, Massachusetts with delightful summers at the General’s charming home at the Villa Balbianello, Lenno, Lake Como, one of Italy’s historic monuments. Though Mrs. Ames died in 1940 General Ames continued to spend his summers at the Villa to which he extended a standing invitation to his classmates.</p>
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The contributions General Ames made to industry may be judged from the following: He was formerly President of the United States Cartridge Company and formerly Treasurer of the Heinze Electric Company of Lowell, Massachusetts. In this capacity he devised and developed numerous mechanical and electrical inventions in various fields. He was Treasurer and Director of the Wamesit Power Company of Lowell, Massachusetts and Vice President of the Ames Textile Corporation and a Director of the Union Land and Grazing Company of Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was formerly a Director of the Middlesex County National Bank of Lowell, Massachusetts.</p>
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In the social field Butler was a member of the Society of Cincinnati in the State of New Hampshire; a member of the Somerset Club of Brookline; the West Point Society of Boston; the New York Yacht Club; the Yorick Club and the Vesper Country Club, both of Lowell.</p>
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With unanimous voice, Butler’s classmates of West Point may say:</p>
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Well done, be thou at rest.</p>
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<em>—Paul B. Malone, ‘04</em></p>
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