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

length Platt steps into the arena-Platt OF
Virginia, James H., jr., formerly, and not very
formerly either, of Vermont. A good deal has
been said, first and last, about the great stroke
of craftsmanship Of the last Congress, by
which each member WAS enabled to convey
(the wise it calp $4,000 before he stole-away.
A sober minded people, unfamiliar with ma
rine phenomena, stood aghast as the tentacles
of the great devil-ish went out and clutched
clammily the National Treasury. AT once
the question rose whether the invertebrate
organism had conscience as it had manifestly
sensation. Into this high debate Mr.. Benjamin
f. Butler, who runs the main chance with
ambiguous vision, poured current of playful
irony not unmixed with postage stamps; Mr.
Shellabarger, who is now reforming the Civil
Service, contributed the decorous logic and
elevated tone of cbivalric gentleman who
refuses to put on airs by telling the truth and
being honest when his associates are lying
and stealing; Mr.. Matt. Carpenter, who
sheds his money on the just and the I'M
iust-mOre on the latter of late-brought the
fervor of his eloQuence and the magic of his
silyery tongue, and half hundred more of
the most distinguished men in the country
swelled the flood of it with arguments such
as would only occur to men engaged in de-
Tending transaction the profits of which
they have already fobbed. The air has re-
sounded with the tumult of dispute, and all
the time in doubtful poise the scales of battle
hung
The fact is Plat himself had not taken q
hand in it. Platt has a judicial mind and
5000 of the money, the conditions for disin-
terested and unbiased judgment And we
waited for Platt. Plat is man who, from
having legible autograph, may be properly
accounted the boon of Providence to the
human race; to which it is proper to add that
his farm is the franking privilege
and his residence Petersburg, Va. Be-
sides being O member of Congress, Plat
ia Secretary or some such thing of
the Republican National Committee. In
that capacity lie flung abroad his cheerful
autograph all last Summer and Fall, deluging
the country with information and the paper
mills with stock. The name of James II.
Platt IT,, written by himself or clerk or
some other man, or stamped in fac simile, was
seen and felt in the remotest hamlet of
our wide extended land, and it always
covered information of the most thrilling
and interesting character. In the words of an
eminent Postmaster, no man in the country
dssimulated SO much information" as James
| II. Platt, jr. His name was household word.
Everybody had letters from him. He was
such q constant correspondent that everybody
grew fond of him, unless it might be per-
haps the Post-Offce people before the
Civil Service was reformed. Platt was q
success. Not that he figured much
in Congress; how could he when his time
was so occupied with the diffusion of political
information 7-but he was a success as o
committeeman and secretary, and the way
he kept clerical force busy forging his frank
on public documents was a refreshment and
delight to the Christian statesmen whose able
utterances and beautiful thoughts were in
this way flung over q benighted land.
Thinking of this, of course everybody has been
saying for weeks and months "why does MT
"Platt just unsling his intellect and settle
"this back-pay disputein But Platt waited.
The occasion was not yet ripe. 1t was not
till last Thursday that he gathered himself
| up, shook the Wild tangles of his fusty hair,
and, bursting into the arena with the war
wboop of one who has got his money and
proposes to hold on to it, announced his
purpose to .srapple with the subject.
1t was at Lynchburg, at a Convention; the
weather it was hot, the Convention was in its
second day, aud the discussion ran upon what
the party believed in, or proposed to say that
it believed in. Milford was the name Of the
colored delegate Who laboring under the in :
sane delusion that stealing was theft, hurled
into the Convention a resolution mildly disap-
proving the back pay business. 1t created, we
are told, much confusion and excitement.
Judge Shoemaker tossed the resolution on his
horns with fierce denunciation, and the friends of
! the Administration generally assisted. And