New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-08-02

then entered Platt. As he was one Of the
" so-cslIed salary stealers," he said it was
proper that he should say something on this
resolution. He could hardly have chosen
more felicitOus opening. No one IN the Con-
vention,. white or black could deny its force
or pertinency. He had voted for the Salary
bin six times he said, and should DO the
same again under similar circumstances
Platt is man not easily Illuminated
Courageous to fault, he is the sort
of man whom not even the fear OF
contagion would deter from handling the soiled
currency of the realm. He had no apologies to
offer, he said, nor any excuses to make. That's
the kind of man Platt is. He had gone all
the way from Vermont to Virginia, had lived
in Petersburg eight years, had given his whole
mind TO politics all that time and furnished
franked documents by the ton. and $1,000 year
was no sort of compensation for such mind as
his. He knew that his abilities, his - well, 80
to speak his intellect, ought to command
more than $1,000 per annum, and 1t
was under the burning consciousness that the
United States had cheated him in the trade;
that he had given the Government brains OF
an uncommon order that were well worth
$4,000 year-to him-and had only got $4,000
for them-it was under the oppression of this
thought that he voted six times to reimburse
himself Moreover, he said he represented
a district that had paid over 100000
into the Treasury since the war. He did
not say that this amount came out
of his own pocket-Platt is too much
of man to make fuss about q triile OF
that sort-nor did he say he should keep
voting back pay to himself till he got square,
but he left both these facts to be inferred.
And really when you settle right to the
merits of the question, how are you going to
get around an argument of that sortf Ten
millions of dollars is a good deal OF money.
At a cent apiece it would take nearly all Of
Platt's franks in the last campaign to make 1t
I'D. Of course Platt wants to get his money
back ...... ......
Having settled the question on its merits,
Platt, in that large way so rare In politicians
before election, and so beautifully becoming
in them after gave the Convention to under
stand that neither Convention or Legislature
could instruct him. If there's anything Platt
has despised from his youth up it is instruc-
ton. In the phrase of the worldly they
couldn't play that on him" 1t would
be time enough, he said, for a Re-
publican Convention to censure the Re-
publicans who voted foI the Salary
bill when Democratic Legislature censured
the Democrats who voted for it. Few men
beside Platt would have thought of that.
1t is view worthy committeeman and
statesman. In conclusion, Platt said he was
prepared to defend himself ION every stump
Gin Virginia. And that's good thing to
do, and just like Plat. Still, he ought not
to tire himself out, for the country is expect
ing great things of him at the next session.
And yet passion and prejudice so warp the
judgments of men that some of the best citi-
zens of Virginia believe that Platt never could
have earned four hundred dollars year if he
had stayed in Vermont, and that he has MT
earned four hundred cents since he has been
in Virginia. This in the face of the historical
fact that Platt is MT half paid for his services.
There seems. to be no standard price for pure
intellect.