The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-09-26
PLATT'S HoLD-UP STORY.
BANDITS ATTACKED THE TRAIN OF
THE NEW YORK BOSS.

Clever Ruse by Which the Robbery
Attention Was Drawn From the
Engincer-Cars RiddIed With Bull
lets-RepubIican Leaders Once
Owned Part of a DeadwOOd Mine
and Has Roughed 1t.
From the New York Journal
Senator Thomas C. Plat is not always
the black-suited, well-groomed calm, cal
culating political leader who watches the
sea from the veranda of the Oriental ho-
tel at Manhattan beach and coldly plots
the defeat of Seth Low.
He has past of adventure with the des-
peradoes of the west and in mining camps
in the days of ''hold-ups" and Indian mas
sacres, and the crack of the six-shooter is
no unfamiliar note to him.
Twenty years ago, when Senator Plat
was not taking the advice of Horace Gree
ly any more than he is to-day guided by
the Citizens union, he nevertheless went
west. And nothing in his long career as a
republican leader, although he has en-
gagged in many an exciting political con-
test, equals his experience in the land of
the cowboys and Indians in the 70s.
It has often been told that Senator Platt
in his youth wrote for a country newspa-
per; that he was member of a republican
glee club; that he clerked in a country
store; that he was in the railroad business,
and his political achievements have been
related over and over again, but somehoW
these interesting incidents of his life have
escaped the historians
II will be news to most people TO learn
that Senator Platt went to DeadWood dur
ing the mining craze, bought third inter-
est in a mine and experienced all the hard
ships incidental 10 the mining of those
days once when travelling in a special car
from California his train was held up by
bandits. who fired through the windows,
the bullets whizzing over his head within
Embarrassing distance. But that is Just what
the senator experienced, as well as many
other equally exciting adventures, all of
which he wildly described TO representa-
tive of the Journal.
He made three trips to the mines and on
one occasion rode for sixty hours in a
stage in the dead of winter without q
moments s.eep. The claim in which he
was interested was jumped by outsiders
and one of his partners was shot down by
the intruders while defending the mines.
Plat appealed TO the courts, but the Judge
" /
intruders had no right to the claim, and
resolved, as he expressed it, that if he
never did another thing he would have
that Judge removed. On his return east
he went to Washington and succeeded in
securing the judges removal. Moreover,
the man whom he suggested was named
in his place.
That man was F. r. Moody, who was
then living at Deadwood. He afterward
became a United States senator from
South Dakota. The case was retired, and
Judge Moody decided in favor of the SEN
ator and his surviving partner
They took possession. and expended $50. :
600 in working it, 1t promised to pay
We'll and the senator was offered S5O0. $50
for his share. The mine promised so we'll
that he refused the offer, 1t would have
been more profitable for him had he ac-
cepted, for the claim gave out and he Just
cleared his expenses.
Here IS the story of Senator Platts ex-
periences. as he told it to the journal rep
resentative:
THE present Klondike excitement re-