Notes on Platt, Blagojevich and the Evil of Banality

Hannah Arendt was the philosopher who coined the ever-useful phrase “the banality of evil.” By 21st Century standards, Boss Tom Platt might be accused of embodying “the evil of banality” – that is, the sort of stand-pat conservatism that allows respectable men to ignore the injustices around them by just being “regular folks.” But most major politicians were guilty of that sort of evil until the rise of William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt. Certainly, Boss Platt would not accept judgment from the likes of those two.

But the question of Platt’s morality still hovers in the air like the smell of old mildew. Was he truly unsavory or just a functionary doing a necessary job? The Boss saw himself as just a player in the great game of Progress. If he suffered from the sin of Pride, he refused to acknowledge it. The great theme of The Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt (New York: B.W. Dodge & Company, 1910) is that of friendship and ingratitude. Platt loves his friends in the Old Guard, the boys who supported Ulysses S. Grant’s third term bid in 1880 and stuck with the regular organization through thick and thin. He has nothing but disdain with those who bucked the party line or refused to expressed thanks to those who helped them advance (like Teddy Roosevelt). What can be a more basic American value that loyalty to friends? Platt claims he never betrayed his comrades – which may well be true. The people of New York he may have shafted, but his buddies? No.

This may be the stuff of banal respectability, but not of champions. Real heroes get into fights with friends – witness Roosevelt’s bitter falling-out with his protégé William Howard Taft. Anyway, this sort of fussy, bookkeeper-like loyalty is a thing of the past. It is juiceless and lacks gusto. We might think better of Boss Platt today if he seemed to enjoy his power more. It is unlikely that such a grey, circumspect figure as the Easy Boss could run a political operation today. Even a nerdy, numbers-crunching doughboy like Karl Rove has more swagger in his step than Platt ever did.

The 2008 Presidential race was a contest between the Loner and the Maverick. Even the powers behind the campaigns were more like hired mercenaries than good organization men and women. We like the loose cannons, the straight talkers, the shoot-from-the-hip types. In this context, Governor Blagojevich is simply a monstrous mutant form of the contemporary successful politician. Blagojevich would horrify Boss Platt. His recklessness, his naked greed, his [expletive] selfishness are universes away from the Boss’ way of doing business. Blagojevich’s behavior – akin to that of Al Pacino or, better yet, Jimmy Cagney in one of their more violent screen roles – is of a distinctly modern cast. Even Boss Tweed would show more class. Blagojevich may be definably evil and quite possibly insane, but he certainly is not banal. He has transcended the mediocre with his venal grandeur. This is not a man afraid of being noticed.

Blagojevich seems to embody nothing but pure avarice. Boss Platt, on the other hand, was excused and even admired by many good ordinary folks across New York State for keeping the Republican flame aglow, even if he had to shake down minor office holders and hit up fat cats to do it. After all, he was helping to guide the party that saved the Union, beat the rebels and freed the slaves. Of course he couldn’t be what his old mentor Senator Conkling called a “man-milliner” – the 19th Century equivalent of a “girly-man.” Running a disciplined party machine is no job for a milquetoast or a wuss. You can be Easy, but not weak.

For all the celebration of individuality in America, most people in this country then and now like to be told what to buy, what to think and who to vote for. Doing it The Machine’s way is reassuring, an act of religious affirmation. It must always be remembered that political identity in late 19th Century America was defined in blood. Back then, a man might literally live next door to another man who killed his son or his brother if he was a Union veteran and his neighbor was a Confederate one. The “Bloody Shirt” was still not dry. What was a little graft compared to distinctions like that?

There are very few austere, wizened-looking old men looking for an Amen in a hotel lobby anymore. There are a few out-of-control governors running around, crazy for sex and money, waiting to be taken out by the cops like Cagney at the end of White Heat. Instead of the language of quiet authority, we are treated with blasts of profanity by the likes of Blagojevich – and Dick Cheney, for that matter. Good old American banality – that fusion of decent intentions and moral turpitude – has evolved into something more virulent, seething and gross. The Easy Boss would be a little too easy to survive today.

They called New York political mastermind Thomas C. Platt the "Easy Boss," perhaps because of his mousy looks and skinny physique. As the second in command to his flamboyant mentor Senator Roscoe Conkling, he was nicknamed "Me-Too Platt," indicating his image as a mere Yes Man. In truth, he was no burly, crude William M. Tweed or gross, arrogant Boies Penrose. Platt was a bland, almost anonymous-looking fellow who operated the Republican Party machine during the late 19th Century with a grip of steel. You didn't mess around with the Easy Boss.

Why invoke his shade now?

Let us first conjure him up in his element, a hotel lobby in New York City on a Sunday afternoon. Here he is, sitting in a well-stuffed chair, a cadaverous man with melancholy eyes and hollow cheeks, listening to the flattery and pleadings of businessmen and lesser politicians, stoical as a Mandarin on an imperial throne. They call this spot the Amen Corner for good reason: when the Easy Boss makes his opinion known, there can only be agreement. Nothing so crass as money changes hands, but fortunes -- financial and political -- shift in this room. Boss Platt raises a bony hand and the deal goes down.

One of these deals created Greater New York by combining Manhattan/the Bronx with Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. For better or worse, this would be the Boss' most enduring legacy. More typically, the Amen Corner approved of the making and breaking of governors, senators and (sometimes) U.S. Presidents. Influence and kickbacks flowed through Platt's machine like motor oil through a great harvester-machine of votes. In the machine's wake were howls of pain, squeals of delight (from the machine's flunkies) and clouds of fear. Few loved Boss Platt, but many feared him.

Today, who even remembers Thomas C. Platt? Mostly, only students of 19th Century politics. For the most part, his deeds were like words written upon water. The Boss is an old suit of threadbare clothes in the musty closet of History. Shake them out and only moths remain.

But let the ghost of Boss Platt retreat and look instead for traces of young Tom the druggest in the bustling upstate New York town of Owego to find a story more poignant and (perhaps) meaningful. Because, though Platt is long gone from Owego (as well as this earth), the town remains, a fairly obscure yet rather pleasant place north of State Highway 17. Commodious brick buildings occupy the main streets, which show surprising bustle and vitality. Owego boasts good restauants and a more-than-decent used book store. If it is not booming, it is not in poor shape either. But a visit to the town does make it apparent that the ghosts far outnumber the living souls here.

Boss Platt -- a cold-blooded spectral presence even in life -- hovers around the edge of the town center, near the pharmacy where he used to work. Is he sorry that he is remembered by almost no one here? Not really. Does he regret that his town is part of a region that has been in decline for nearly a century? Are you kidding? The Heart of Platt does not bleed for a puny backwater town, even if he grew up there. Platt was a creature of the Social Darwinian age, and even if he adhered to the pieties of the Protestant faith, he knew what the laws of the universe were. And besides, was the world even the world anymore with the Boss no longer in it?