The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-01-13
TO PLAIT'S HOME
William Allen Whites Little Jour-
ney Caused Trouble.
THE LEADER TOOK oFFENsE
A Semf-Humorus Description in Nc
Clure's OF the Boss Ways
and Methods.
Chicago Post.

Chicago Post.
interest IN the December number OF Nc
cures Magazine naturally centers just
now In William Allen Whites "charac-
ter" sketch OF Senator Thomas c. Plat.
me senator Is far from pleased with
Mr.. whites pen picture. and threatens
to bring suit for libel against both the
writer of the sketch and the publishers
of the magazine.
MT. White begins with Mr.. Platt's boy
| hood IN the little country town OF OWego,
N. y. The townsmen say that the
younger Plat grew up rather beardless,
Wabbly-legged. fat-chested, sQuawky-
voiced boy. He came to adolescence
amid the best culture and refinement
century afforded, and went to Yale col
lege There he was fairly good student
until his vitality began to ebb, and ne
left In his junior year. He came back
! to Owego with notions, and started a
little publication which he called the
st. Nicholas Magazine" He conducted
the joke department. "He was given to
puns and quips and glbes and, worst OF
all, to bad poetry" But this poetry led
Tom Platt into politics. In the cam
paign of 1856 the abolitionists had Tom
Plat get up the Owego Campaign Glee
club and organize the republican party in
Tioga county.
\
snarled and sneered and lampooned to get
votes. He worked Cornell and
Conkling and Louis F. Payn to give Grant
the New York delegation in SO and IL.
AS result, he got the Albany habit
and became known to men about the po-
litical hotels of the capital"
ing business.
Soon che began little innocent excur-
sions in state legislation with local bills
and private bills, turned out some neat
and workmanlike Jobs and was becom-
ing so important in state affairs that the
people of his home town hated HIM.
From this point in the condensation OF
Mr.. Whites article it will serve the pur-
pose better to select few Of the high
lights" from the sketch, as follows:
Plat could work only under cover; oay-
light politics blinded him. .. ..
When he resigned with Conkling, Plat was
really hunting cover. The light of publicity
had daZed him. t>-a .... ....
Plat keeps an alliance with an enemy as
honorably as he keeps 1t with friend. ana
a friend, unless he Is wise friend, VINO
knows his man, may be as insecure without
Platt's express promise, which he never
breaks, as an enemy Is.
Platt Is a hoodoo in national politics. He
has been lucky in but one convention IN
twenty years; he has no eye for the current
OF opinion.
After the defeat Of Blaine at the Mime
apolis convention in '92, Plat returned to his
earth at Albany. #f
1t is tina control Of the state central com
mittee THU chiefly concerns Plat. That is
his firm fortress. Through the state central
committee Plat reaches legislatures oe1ore
they are elected His method Is simple. AS
rule. man running for the legislature nas
no money to spend In his campaign Platt
furnishes the candidate with money LOT cleo
ton expenses through the agency OF the state
central committee. s:2
When the democrats beat Plat at Albany
they will have to make clean sweep OF the
legislative and executive branches OF the
state-an unlikely circumstance. And Platt
has one resource left even then. The judiciary
Lis recruited from among the faithful Too
often the judges ofgthescourt OF appeals are
Platt's men. E-
II it will help him in New York, Plat will
vote for free trade orr free silver, or any
issue which the republican caucus might
espouse. The guile Of politics Is mis- meat
and drink. .:a 42
And vet in money matters Plat Is honest.
MANY hundreds Of thousands of dollars pass
thorugh his hands annually for political pur-
poses-and don't believe that one penny ever
sticks to his fingers He has never mace
money out Of politics.
And now he ia machine hlmseI-nafo'
impuseless, cunning, cute but W1tless; I'M
movable, inexorable, grinding, persistent as
the power that pulls him; a thing to be taken
apart without finding soul, yet shrewd and
with almost human intelligence in his limited
work. ...
He whom they have been calling the old
man, for so many years is passing very
gently from his kingdom and his power. He
has the dry, purple pink parchment skin OF
senility, and his voice is no longer firm His
eyes are often dull. He wears the unkempl
beard that old men have. He sleeps much
in the daytime, and he works automatically
when he is awake.