Thomas C. Platt

Thomas Collier Platt ( born July 15, 1833 in Owego, New York, † March 6, 1910 in New York City ) was an American politician who represented the New York State in both chambers of Congress.

Life

Thomas C. Platt was born as the son of William Platt, a successful lawyer, and his wife Lesbia Hinchman in Owego and would study his father's wish according to theology and to be a missionary of Presbyterianism. After visiting the Owego Academy, Platt wrote a Yale College, where he studied theology 1850-1852. However, he had little interest in it, so that he finally broke off the study.

After Platt was in many jobs, having worked in a pharmacy, was briefly the editor of a small newspaper and was in his early years president of the Tioga National Bank. He also lived for a time in Michigan, where he invested in wood -processing companies. He was also Chairman of the Railway Company Southern Central Railway.

1859 could be final Platt in New York State, where he was elected in the same year for a period of two years as the administrator of Tioga County. As a Republican, Platt was elected in March 1873 in the House of Representatives of the United States, where he two legislatures served until March 1877. After that, plat devoted temporarily other private-sector companies. He was in 1879 elected president of the United States Express Co. and elected in 1880 to the Supervisory Board of Quarantine Commissioners of New York. In March 1881 his election followed in the U.S. Senate. Because of a dispute with U.S. President James A. Garfield, who wanted to interfere in affairs of the State of New York, with which Platt did not agree, he put on 16 May 1881 after only two months, his mandate. On the same day also Roscoe Conkling, who was at the same time with Senator Platt of New York, resigned.

1896 Platt tried - again with success - to a Senate seat. He pulled on March 4, 1897 again in the Second Chamber of the Parliament a, in which he was confirmed by re-election in 1903. Although Theodore Roosevelt held as governor of New York and later U.S. president a much higher position of power, was Platt in the ten years in which he represented New York in the Senate, as the real boss of the New York Republican. It is also due to Platts interventions that Roosevelt was chosen in 1900 as vice presidential candidate by William McKinley. 1908 failed re- nomination of his party, so that Platt on March 3, 1909 retired from the Senate.

With his wife, Ellen Lucy Barstow, with whom he had been married since 1852, he had three sons together. He died in March 1910 at the age of 76 years.