Donn Piatt: Gadfly of the Gilded Age

Piatt had strong opinions on many subjects, but decades after the Civil War he rehashed tactics and command decisions that few Americans could recall. Piatt was also a lobbyist and a political self-seeker who longed for a diplomatic posting, but what does it tell us when the only political plum he ever received came from Grover Cleveland: a $40-per-annum appointment as postmaster for Mac-o-cheek, Ohio, near where Piatt erected a family castle? (And what does it say when Piatt felt this post as conferred the gravitas necessary for making suggestions on how to improve the postal service?) Bridges admits that Piatt was "muckraker" and a "gadfly" but also insists that his "years of useful service to the American republic" were analogous to those of Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, and Upton Sinclair (195).