Thomas C. Platt
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Thomas Collier Platt (1833-1910) was a two-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1873-1877) and a three-term U.S. Senator from New York in the years 1881 and 1897-1909.
Platt was born in Owego, New York July 15, 1833.[1] He was prepared for college at the Owego Academy and attended Yale College in 1849 and 1850. In 1852 he engaged in business as a druggist and continued for twenty years. He was president of the Tioga National Bank and was interested in the lumbering business in Michigan. He also acted as president of the Southern Central and other railways.
He was clerk of Tioga County from 1859 to 1861. He was elected as a Republican to the Forty-third United States Congress and the Forty-fourth United States Congress (March 4, 1873-March 3, 1877).
He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1881, and served from March 4, 1881, to May 16, 1881, when he and Roscoe Conkling resigned because of a disagreement with President James Garfield over federal appointments in New York . (Platt resigned at Conkling's insistence, earning him the nickname of "Me Too" Platt.) He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate to succeed himself. He was the chairman, Committee on Enrolled Bills (Forty-seventh Congress). He was secretary and director of the United States Express Co. in 1879 and elected president of the company in 1880. He was a member and president of the Board of Quarantine Commissioners of New York 1880-1888. He was a member of the Republican National Committee and was elected to the United States Senate in 1896 and was reelected in 1903. He served from March 4, 1897, to March 3, 1909 and was not a candidate for reelection. He served as chairman of the Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard (Fifty-fifth Congress). He was on the Committee on Printing (Fifty-sixth through Sixtieth Congresses), the Committee on Cuban Relations (Fifty-ninth Congress), the Committee on Interoceanic Canals (Fifty-ninth Congress).
He died in New York City, March 6, 1910 and was interred in Evergeen Cemetery, Owego, N.Y.
[edit] Historical impact
On January 21, 1897, his photograph appeared in the New York Tribune as “the first halftone reproduction to appear in a mass circulation daily paper,” according to Time-Life’s Photojournalism.
In order to increase his power as a political boss, Platt steered passage of the Greater New York bill in 1898. The bill incorporated the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island into the city, thereby creating New York City as it exists today.
[edit] References
- ^ "Platt, Thomas Collier." Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge, volume 15, copyright 1991. Grolier Inc., ISBN 0-7172-5300-7
[edit] Bibliography
- L. J. Lang (editor), The Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt, (New York, 1910)
- Dictionary of American Biography;
- Gosnell, Harold. Boss Platt and His New York Machine: A Study of the Political Leadership of Thomas C. Platt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Others. (1924) standard biography
- AMS Press, 1969; Platt, Thomas Collier. The Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt. Edited by Louis J. Lang. 1910. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1974.
| Preceded by Francis Kernan |
United States Senator (Class 1) from New York 1881 Served alongside: Roscoe Conkling |
Succeeded by Warner Miller |
| Preceded by David B. Hill |
United States Senator (Class 3) from New York 1897–1909 Served alongside: Edward Murphy, Jr., Chauncey M. Depew |
Succeeded by Elihu A. Root |
This article incorporates facts obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
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