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CHAPTER 8

THE NEW YORK GOVERNORSHIP

In September, 1898, the First Volunteer Cavalry, in company with most
of the rest of the Fifth Army Corps, was disembarked at Montauk Point.
Shortly after it was disbanded, and a few days later, I was nominated
for Governor of New York by the Republican party. Timothy L. Woodruff
was nominated for Lieutenant-Governor. He was my stanch friend
throughout the term of our joint service.

The previous year, the machine or standpat Republicans, who were under
the domination of Senator Platt, had come to a complete break with the
anti-machine element over the New York mayoralty. This had brought
the Republican party to a smash, not only in New York City, but in the
State, where the Democratic candidate for Chief Judge of the Court
of Appeals, Alton B. Parker, was elected by sixty or eighty thousand
majority. Mr. Parker was an able man, a lieutenant of Mr. Hill's,
standing close to the conservative Democrats of the Wall Street type.
These conservative Democrats were planning how to wrest the Democratic
party from the control of Mr. Bryan. They hailed Judge Parker's victory
as a godsend. The Judge at once loomed up as a Presidential possibility,
and was carefully groomed for the position by the New York Democratic
machine, and its financial allies in the New York business world.

The Republicans realized that the chances were very much against them.
Accordingly the leaders were in a chastened mood and ready to nominate
any candidate with whom they thought there was a chance of winning. I
was the only possibility, and, accordingly, under pressure from certain
of the leaders who recognized this fact, and who responded to popular
pressure, Senator Platt picked me for the nomination. He was entirely
frank in the matter. He made no pretense that he liked me personally;
but he deferred to the judgment of those who insisted that I was the
only man who could be elected, and that therefore I had to be nominated.

Foremost among the leaders who pressed me on Mr. Platt (who "pestered"
him about me, to use his own words) were Mr. Quigg, Mr. Odell--then
State Chairman of the Republican organization, and afterwards
Governor--and Mr. Hazel, now United States Judge. Judge Hazel did not
know me personally, but felt that the sentiment in his city, Buffalo,
demanded my nomination, and that the then Republican Governor, Mr.
Black, could not be reelected. Mr. Odell, who hardly knew me personally,
felt the same way about Mr. Black's chances, and, as he had just taken
the State Chairmanship, he was very anxious to win a victory. Mr. Quigg
knew me quite well personally; he had been in touch with me for years,
while he was a reporter on the _Tribune_, and also when he edited a
paper in Montana; he had been on good terms with me while he was in
Congress and I was Civil Service Commissioner, meeting me often in
company with my especial cronies in Congress--men like Lodge, Speaker
Tom Reed, Greenhalge, Butterworth, and Dolliver--and he had urged my
appointment as Police Commissioner on Mayor Strong.

It was Mr. Quigg who called on me at Montauk Point to sound me about the
Governorship; Mr. Platt being by no means enthusiastic over Mr. Quigg's
mission, largely because he disapproved of the Spanish War and of my
part in bringing it about. Mr. Quigg saw me in my tent, in which he
spent a couple of hours with me, my brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson,
being also present. Quigg spoke very frankly to me, stating that he
earnestly desired to see me nominated and believed that the great body
of Republican voters in the State so desired, but that the organization
and the State Convention would finally do what Senator Platt desired. He
said that county leaders were already coming to Senator Platt, hinting
at a close election, expressing doubt of Governor Black's availability
for reelection, and asking why it would not be a good thing to nominate
me; that now that I had returned to the United States this would go on
more and more all the time, and that he (Quigg) did not wish that
these men should be discouraged and be sent back to their localities to
suppress a rising sentiment in my favor. For this reason he said that
he wanted from me a plain statement as to whether or not I wanted the
nomination, and as to what would be my attitude toward the organization
in the event of my nomination and election, whether or not I would "make
war" on Mr. Platt and his friends, or whether I would confer with them
and with the organization leaders generally, and give fair consideration
to their point of view as to party policy and public interest. He said
he had not come to make me any offer of the nomination, and had no
authority to do so, nor to get any pledges or promises. He simply wanted
a frank definition of my attitude towards existing party conditions.

To this I replied that I should like to be nominated, and if nominated
would promise to throw myself into the campaign with all possible
energy. I said that I should not make war on Mr. Platt or anybody else
if war could be avoided; that what I wanted was to be Governor and not a
faction leader; that I certainly would confer with the organization
men, as with everybody else who seemed to me to have knowledge of
and interest in public affairs, and that as to Mr. Platt and the
organization leaders, I would do so in the sincere hope that there might
always result harmony of opinion and purpose; but that while I would try
to get on well with the organization, the organization must with equal
sincerity strive to do what I regarded as essential for the public good;
and that in every case, after full consideration of what everybody had
to say who might possess real knowledge of the matter, I should have to
act finally as my own judgment and conscience dictated and administer
the State government as I thought it ought to be administered. Quigg
said that this was precisely what he supposed I would say, that it was
all anybody could expect, and that he would state it to Senator Platt
precisely as I had put it to him, which he accordingly did; and,
throughout my term as Governor, Quigg lived loyally up to our
understanding.[*]

     [*] In a letter to me Mr. Quigg states, what I had
     forgotten, that I told him to tell the Senator that I would
     talk freely with him, and had no intention of becoming a
     factional leader with a personal organization, yet that I
     must have direct personal relations with everybody, and get
     their views at first hand whenever I so desired, because I
     could not have one man speaking for all.

After being nominated, I made a hard and aggressive campaign through the
State. My opponent was a respectable man, a judge, behind whom stood
Mr. Croker, the boss of Tammany Hall. My object was to make the people
understand that it was Croker, and not the nominal candidate, who was my
real opponent; that the choice lay between Crokerism and myself. Croker
was a powerful and truculent man, the autocrat of his organization, and
of a domineering nature. For his own reasons he insisted upon Tammany's
turning down an excellent Democratic judge who was a candidate for
reelection. This gave me my chance. Under my attack, Croker, who was a
stalwart fighting man and who would not take an attack tamely, himself
came to the front. I was able to fix the contest in the public mind as
one between himself and myself; and, against all probabilities, I won by
the rather narrow margin of eighteen thousand plurality.

As I have already said, there is a lunatic fringe to every reform
movement. At least nine-tenths of all the sincere reformers supported
me; but the ultra-pacifists, the so-called anti-imperialists, or
anti-militarists, or peace-at-any-price men, preferred Croker to me;
and another knot of extremists who had at first ardently insisted that
I must be "forced" on Platt, as soon as Platt supported me themselves
opposed me _because_ he supported me. After election John Hay wrote me
as follows: "While you are Governor, I believe the party can be
made solid as never before. You have already shown that a man may be
absolutely honest and yet practical; a reformer by instinct and a wise
politician; brave, bold, and uncompromising, and yet not a wild ass
of the desert. The exhibition made by the professional independents in
voting against you for no reason on earth except that somebody else was
voting for you, is a lesson that is worth its cost."

At that time boss rule was at its very zenith. Mr. Bryan's candidacy in
1896 on a free silver platform had threatened such frightful business
disaster as to make the business men, the wage-workers, and the
professional classes generally, turn eagerly to the Republican party.
East of the Mississippi the Republican vote for Mr. McKinley was larger
by far than it had been for Abraham Lincoln in the days when the life of
the Nation was at stake. Mr. Bryan championed many sorely needed reforms
in the interest of the plain people; but many of his platform proposals,
economic and otherwise, were of such a character that to have put them
into practice would have meant to plunge all our people into conditions
far worse than any of those for which he sought a remedy. The free
silver advocates included sincere and upright men who were able to make
a strong case for their position; but with them and dominating them were
all the believers in the complete or partial repudiation of National,
State, and private debts; and not only the business men but the
workingmen grew to feel that under these circumstances too heavy a price
could not be paid to avert the Democratic triumph. The fear of Mr. Bryan
threw almost all the leading men of all classes into the arms of whoever
opposed him.

The Republican bosses, who were already very powerful, and who were
already in fairly close alliance with the privileged interests, now
found everything working to their advantage. Good and high-minded men
of conservative temperament in their panic played into the hands of the
ultra-reactionaries of business and politics. The alliance between the
two kinds of privilege, political and financial, was closely cemented;
and wherever there was any attempt to break it up, the cry was at once
raised that this merely represented another phase of the assault on
National honesty and individual and mercantile integrity. As so often
happens, the excesses and threats of an unwise and extreme radicalism
had resulted in immensely strengthening the position of the
beneficiaries of reaction. This was the era when the Standard Oil
Company achieved a mastery of Pennsylvania politics so far-reaching
and so corrupt that it is difficult to describe it without seeming to
exaggerate.

In New York State, United States Senator Platt was the absolute boss of
the Republican party. "Big business" was back of him; yet at the time
this, the most important element in his strength, was only imperfectly
understood. It was not until I was elected Governor that I myself came
to understand it. We were still accustomed to talking of the "machine"
as if it were something merely political, with which business had
nothing to do. Senator Platt did not use his political position to
advance his private fortunes--therein differing absolutely from many
other political bosses. He lived in hotels and had few extravagant
tastes. Indeed, I could not find that he had any tastes at all except
for politics, and on rare occasions for a very dry theology wholly
divorced from moral implications. But big business men contributed
to him large sums of money, which enabled him to keep his grip on
the machine and secured for them the help of the machine if they were
threatened with adverse legislation. The contributions were given in the
guise of contributions for campaign purposes, of money for the good
of the party; when the money was contributed there was rarely talk of
specific favors in return.[*] It was simply put into Mr. Platt's hands
and treated by him as in the campaign chest. Then he distributed it
in the districts where it was most needed by the candidates and
organization leaders. Ordinarily no pledge was required from the latter
to the bosses, any more than it was required by the business men
from Mr. Platt or his lieutenants. No pledge was needed. It was all a
"gentlemen's understanding." As the Senator once said to me, if a man's
character was such that it was necessary to get a promise from him, it
was clear proof that his character was such that the promise would not
be worth anything after it was made.

     [*] Each nation has its own pet sins to which it is merciful
     and also sins which it treats as most abhorrent. In America
     we are peculiarly sensitive about big money contributions
     for which the donors expect any reward. In England, where in
     some ways the standard is higher than here, such
     contributions are accepted as a matter of course, nay, as
     one of the methods by which wealthy men obtain peerages. It
     would be well-nigh an impossibility for a man to secure a
     seat in the United States Senate by mere campaign
     contributions, in the way that seats in the British House of
     Lords have often been secured without any scandal being
     caused thereby.

It must not be forgotten that some of the worst practices of the machine
in dealings of this kind represented merely virtues in the wrong place,
virtues wrenched out of proper relation to their surroundings. A man in
a doubtful district might win only because of the help Mr. Platt gave
him; he might be a decent young fellow without money enough to finance
his own campaign, who was able to finance it only because Platt of his
own accord found out or was apprised of his need and advanced the money.
Such a man felt grateful, and, because of his good qualities, joined
with the purely sordid and corrupt heelers and crooked politicians to
become part of the Platt machine. In his turn Mr. Platt was recognized
by the business men, the big contributors, as an honorable man; not only
a man of his word, but a man who, whenever he received a favor, could be
trusted to do his best to repay it on any occasion that arose. I believe
that usually the contributors, and the recipient, sincerely felt that
the transaction was proper and subserved the cause of good politics
and good business; and, indeed, as regards the major part of the
contributions, it is probable that this was the fact, and that the only
criticism that could properly be made about the contributions was that
they were not made with publicity--and at that time neither the parties
nor the public had any realization that publicity was necessary, or any
adequate understanding of the dangers of the "invisible empire"
which throve by what was done in secrecy. Many, probably most, of the
contributors of this type never wished anything personal in exchange for
their contributions, and made them with sincere patriotism, desiring in
return only that the Government should be conducted on a proper basis.
Unfortunately, it was, in practice, exceedingly difficult to distinguish
these men from the others who contributed big sums to the various party
bosses with the expectation of gaining concrete and personal advantages
(in which the bosses shared) at the expense of the general public. It
was very hard to draw the line between these two types of contributions.

There was but one kind of money contributions as to which it seemed to
me absolutely impossible for either the contributor or the recipient to
disguise to themselves the evil meaning of the contribution. This was
where a big corporation contributed to both political parties. I knew of
one such case where in a State campaign a big corporation which had many
dealings with public officials frankly contributed in the neighborhood
of a hundred thousand dollars to one campaign fund and fifty thousand
dollars to the campaign fund of the other side--and, I believe, made
some further substantial contributions in the same ratio of two dollars
to one side for every one dollar given to the other. The contributors
were Democrats, and the big contributions went to the Democratic
managers. The Republican was elected, and after his election, when
a matter came up affecting the company, in which its interests were
hostile to those of the general public, the successful candidate, then
holding a high State office, was approached by his campaign managers
and the situation put frankly before him. He was less disturbed than
astonished, and remarked, "Why, I thought So-and-so and his associates
were Democrats and subscribed to the Democratic campaign fund." "So they
did," was the answer; "they subscribed to them twice as much as they
subscribed to us, but if they had had any idea that you intended doing
what you now say you will do, they would have subscribed it all to the
other side, and more too." The State official in his turn answered that
he was very sorry if any one had subscribed under a misapprehension,
that it was no fault of his, for he had stated definitely and clearly
his position, that he of course had no money wherewith himself to return
what without his knowledge had been contributed, and that all he could
say was that any man who had subscribed to his campaign fund under the
impression that the receipt of the subscription would be a bar to the
performance of public duty was sadly mistaken.

The control by Mr. Platt and his lieutenants over the organization was
well-nigh complete. There were splits among the bosses, and insurgent
movements now and then, but the ordinary citizens had no control over
the political machinery except in a very few districts. There were,
however, plenty of good men in politics, men who either came from
districts where there was popular control, or who represented a genuine
aspiration towards good citizenship on the part of some boss or group of
bosses, or else who had been nominated frankly for reasons of expediency
by bosses whose attitude towards good citizenship was at best one of
Gallio-like indifference. At the time when I was nominated for Governor,
as later when Mr. Hughes was nominated and renominated for Governor,
there was no possibility of securing the nomination unless the bosses
permitted it. In each case the bosses, the machine leaders, took a man
for whom they did not care, because he was the only man with whom they
could win. In the case of Mr. Hughes there was of course also the fact
of pressure from the National Administration. But the bosses were never
overcome in a fair fight, when they had made up their minds to fight,
until the Saratoga Convention in 1910, when Mr. Stimson was nominated
for Governor.

Senator Platt had the same inborn capacity for the kind of politics
which he liked that many big Wall Street men have shown for not wholly
dissimilar types of finance. It was his chief interest, and he
applied himself to it unremittingly. He handled his private business
successfully; but it was politics in which he was absorbed, and he
concerned himself therewith every day in the year. He had built up an
excellent system of organization, and the necessary funds came from
corporations and men of wealth who contributed as I have described
above. The majority of the men with a natural capacity for organization
leadership of the type which has generally been prevalent in New York
politics turned to Senator Platt as their natural chief and helped build
up the organization, until under his leadership it became more powerful
and in a position of greater control than any other Republican machine
in the country, excepting in Pennsylvania. The Democratic machines
in some of the big cities, as in New York and Boston, and the country
Democratic machine of New York under David B. Hill, were probably
even more efficient, representing an even more complete mastery by
the bosses, and an even greater degree of drilled obedience among the
henchmen. It would be an entire mistake to suppose that Mr. Platt's
lieutenants were either all bad men or all influenced by unworthy
motives. He was constantly doing favors for men. He had won the
gratitude of many good men. In the country districts especially, there
were many places where his machine included the majority of the best
citizens, the leading and substantial citizens, among the inhabitants.
Some of his strongest and most efficient lieutenants were disinterested
men of high character.

There had always been a good deal of opposition to Mr. Platt and the
machine, but the leadership of this opposition was apt to be found only
among those whom Abraham Lincoln called the "silk stockings," and much
of it excited almost as much derision among the plain people as the
machine itself excited anger or dislike. Very many of Mr. Platt's
opponents really disliked him and his methods, for aesthetic rather than
for moral reasons, and the bulk of the people half-consciously felt this
and refused to submit to their leadership. The men who opposed him in
this manner were good citizens according to their lights, prominent in
the social clubs and in philanthropic circles, men of means and often
men of business standing. They disliked coarse and vulgar politicians,
and they sincerely reprobated all the shortcomings that were recognized
by, and were offensive to, people of their own caste. They had not the
slightest understanding of the needs, interests, ways of thought, and
convictions of the average small man; and the small man felt this,
although he could not express it, and sensed that they were really not
concerned with his welfare, and that they did not offer him anything
materially better from his point of view than the machine.

When reformers of this type attempted to oppose Mr. Platt, they usually
put up either some rather inefficient, well-meaning person, who
bathed every day, and didn't steal, but whose only good point was
"respectability," and who knew nothing of the great fundamental
questions looming before us; or else they put up some big business man
or corporation lawyer who was wedded to the gross wrong and injustice
of our economic system, and who neither by personality nor by programme
gave the ordinary plain people any belief that there was promise of
vital good to them in the change. The correctness of their view was
proved by the fact that as soon as fundamental economic and social
reforms were at stake the aesthetic, as distinguished from the genuinely
moral, reformers, for the most part sided with the bosses against the
people.

When I became Governor, the conscience of the people was in no way or
shape aroused, as it has since become roused. The people accepted and
practiced in a matter-of-course way as quite proper things which they
would not now tolerate. They had no definite and clearly outlined
conception of what they wished in the way of reform. They on the whole
tolerated, and indeed approved of, the machine; and there had been no
development on any considerable scale of reformers with the vision to
see what the needs of the people were, and the high purpose sanely to
achieve what was necessary in order to meet these needs. I knew both the
machine and the silk-stocking reformers fairly well, from many years'
close association with them. The machine as such had no ideals at all,
although many of the men composing it did have. On the other hand, the
ideals of very many of the silk-stocking reformers did not relate to
the questions of real and vital interest to our people; and, singularly
enough, in international matters, these same silk-stockings were no more
to be trusted than the average ignorant demagogue or shortsighted spoils
politicians. I felt that these men would be broken reeds to which to
trust in any vital contest for betterment of social and industrial
conditions.

I had neither the training nor the capacity that would have enabled me
to match Mr. Platt and his machine people on their own ground. Nor did
I believe that the effort to build up a machine of my own under the then
existing conditions would meet the needs of the situation so far as the
people were concerned. I therefore made no effort to create a machine of
my own, and consistently adopted the plan of going over the heads of the
men holding public office and of the men in control of the organization,
and appealing directly to the people behind them. The machine, for
instance, had a more or less strong control over the great bulk of the
members of the State Legislature; but in the last resort the people
behind these legislators had a still greater control over them. I made
up my mind that the only way I could beat the bosses whenever the need
to do so arose (and unless there was such need I did not wish to try)
was, not by attempting to manipulate the machinery, and not by trusting
merely to the professional reformers, but by making my appeal as
directly and as emphatically as I knew how to the mass of voters
themselves, to the people, to the men who if waked up would be able to
impose their will on their representatives. My success depended upon
getting the people in the different districts to look at matters in my
way, and getting them to take such an active interest in affairs as to
enable them to exercise control over their representatives.

There were a few of the Senators and Assemblymen whom I could reach by
seeing them personally and putting before them my arguments; but most of
them were too much under the control of the machine for me to shake
them loose unless they knew that the people were actively behind me. In
making my appeal to the people as a whole I was dealing with an entirely
different constituency from that which, especially in the big cities,
liked to think of itself as the "better element," the particular
exponent of reform and good citizenship. I was dealing with shrewd,
hard-headed, kindly men and women, chiefly concerned with the absorbing
work of earning their own living, and impatient of fads, who had grown
to feel that the associations with the word "reformer" were not much
better than the associations with the word "politician." I had to
convince these men and women of my good faith, and, moreover, of my
common sense and efficiency. They were most of them strong partisans,
and an outrage had to be very real and very great to shake them even
partially loose from their party affiliations. Moreover, they took
little interest in any fight of mere personalities. They were not
influenced in the least by the silk-stocking reform view of Mr. Platt.
I knew that if they were persuaded that I was engaged in a mere faction
fight against him, that it was a mere issue between his ambition and
mine, they would at once become indifferent, and my fight would be lost.

But I felt that I could count on their support wherever I could show
them that the fight was not made just for the sake of the row, that it
was not made merely as a factional contest against Senator Platt and the
organization, but was waged from a sense of duty for real and tangible
causes such as the promotion of governmental efficiency and honesty,
and forcing powerful moneyed men to take the proper attitude toward the
community at large. They stood by me when I insisted upon having the
canal department, the insurance department, and the various departments
of the State Government run with efficiency and honesty; they stood by
me when I insisted upon making wealthy men who owned franchises pay
the State what they properly ought to pay; they stood by me when, in
connection with the strikes on the Croton Aqueduct and in Buffalo, I
promptly used the military power of the State to put a stop to rioting
and violence.

In the latter case my chief opponents and critics were local politicians
who were truckling to the labor vote; but in all cases coming under the
first two categories I had serious trouble with the State leaders of the
machine. I always did my best, in good faith, to get Mr. Platt and the
other heads of the machine to accept my views, and to convince them,
by repeated private conversations, that I was right. I never wantonly
antagonized or humiliated them. I did not wish to humiliate them or to
seem victorious over them; what I wished was to secure the things that
I thought it essential to the men and women of the State to secure. If I
could finally persuade them to support me, well and good; in such case I
continued to work with them in the friendliest manner.

If after repeated and persistent effort I failed to get them to support
me, then I made a fair fight in the open, and in a majority of cases I
carried my point and succeeded in getting through the legislation which
I wished. In theory the Executive has nothing to do with legislation. In
practice, as things now are, the Executive is or ought to be peculiarly
representative of the people as a whole. As often as not the action
of the Executive offers the only means by which the people can get the
legislation they demand and ought to have. Therefore a good executive
under the present conditions of American political life must take a very
active interest in getting the right kind of legislation, in addition
to performing his executive duties with an eye single to the public
welfare. More than half of my work as Governor was in the direction of
getting needed and important legislation. I accomplished this only by
arousing the people, and riveting their attention on what was done.

Gradually the people began to wake up more and more to the fact that the
machine politicians were not giving them the kind of government which
they wished. As this waking up grew more general, not merely in New York
or any other one State, but throughout most of the Nation, the power
of the bosses waned. Then a curious thing happened. The professional
reformers who had most loudly criticized these bosses began to change
toward them. Newspaper editors, college presidents, corporation lawyers,
and big business men, all alike, had denounced the bosses and had taken
part in reform movements against them so long as these reforms dealt
only with things that were superficial, or with fundamental things that
did not affect themselves and their associates. But the majority
of these men turned to the support of the bosses when the great new
movement began clearly to make itself evident as one against privilege
in business no less than against privilege in politics, as one for
social and industrial no less than for political righteousness and fair
dealing. The big corporation lawyer who had antagonized the boss in
matters which he regarded as purely political stood shoulder to shoulder
with the boss when the movement for betterment took shape in direct
attack on the combination of business with politics and with the
judiciary which has done so much to enthrone privilege in the economic
world.

The reformers who denounced political corruption and fraud when shown
at the expense of their own candidates by machine ward heelers of a low
type hysterically applauded similar corrupt trickery when practiced by
these same politicians against men with whose political and industrial
programme the reformers were not in sympathy. I had always been
instinctively and by nature a democrat, but if I had needed conversion
to the democratic ideal here in America the stimulus would have been
supplied by what I saw of the attitude, not merely of the bulk of the
men of greatest wealth, but of the bulk of the men who most prided
themselves upon their education and culture, when we began in good faith
to grapple with the wrong and injustice of our social and industrial
system, and to hit at the men responsible for the wrong, no matter how
high they stood in business or in politics, at the bar or on the bench.
It was while I was Governor, and especially in connection with the
franchise tax legislation, that I first became thoroughly aware of the
real causes of this attitude among the men of great wealth and among the
men who took their tone from the men of great wealth.

Very soon after my victory in the race for Governor I had one or two
experiences with Senator Platt which showed in amusing fashion how
absolute the rule of the boss was in the politics of that day. Senator
Platt, who was always most kind and friendly in his personal relations
with me, asked me in one day to talk over what was to be done at Albany.
He had the two or three nominal heads of the organization with him. They
were his lieutenants, who counseled and influenced him, whose advice he
often followed, but who, when he had finally made up his mind, merely
registered and carried out his decrees. After a little conversation the
Senator asked if I had any member of the Assembly whom I wished to
have put on any committee, explaining that the committees were being
arranged. I answered no, and expressed my surprise at what he had said,
because I had not understood the Speaker who appointed the committees
had himself been agreed upon by the members-elect. "Oh!" responded the
Senator, with a tolerant smile, "He has not been chosen yet, but of
course whoever we choose as Speaker will agree beforehand to make the
appointments we wish." I made a mental note to the effect that if they
attempted the same process with the Governor-elect they would find
themselves mistaken.

In a few days the opportunity to prove this arrived. Under the preceding
Administration there had been grave scandals about the Erie Canal, the
trans-State Canal, and these scandals had been one of the chief issues
in the campaign for the Governorship. The construction of this work was
under the control of the Superintendent of Public Works. In the actual
state of affairs his office was by far the most important office under
me, and I intended to appoint to it some man of high character and
capacity who could be trusted to do the work not merely honestly and
efficiently, but without regard to politics. A week or so after the
Speakership incident Senator Platt asked me to come and see him (he was
an old and physically feeble man, able to move about only with extreme
difficulty).

On arrival I found the Lieutenant-Governor elect, Mr. Woodruff, who had
also been asked to come. The Senator informed me that he was glad to
say that I would have a most admirable man as Superintendent of Public
Works, as he had just received a telegram from a certain gentleman, whom
he named, saying that he would accept the position! He handed me the
telegram. The man in question was a man I liked; later I appointed him
to an important office in which he did well. But he came from a city
along the line of the canal, so that I did not think it best that he
should be appointed anyhow; and, moreover, what was far more important,
it was necessary to have it understood at the very outset that the
Administration was my Administration and was no one else's but mine. So
I told the Senator very politely that I was sorry, but that I could not
appoint his man. This produced an explosion, but I declined to lose my
temper, merely repeating that I must decline to accept any man chosen
for me, and that I must choose the man myself. Although I was very
polite, I was also very firm, and Mr. Platt and his friends finally
abandoned their position.

I appointed an engineer from Brooklyn, a veteran of the Civil War,
Colonel Partridge, who had served in Mayor Low's administration. He was
an excellent man in every way. He chose as his assistant, actively to
superintend the work, a Cornell graduate named Elon Hooker, a man with
no political backing at all, picked simply because he was the best
equipped man for the place. The office, the most important office under
me, was run in admirable fashion throughout my Administration; I
doubt if there ever was an important department of the New York State
Government run with a higher standard of efficiency and integrity.

But this was not all that had to be done about the canals. Evidently
the whole policy hitherto pursued had been foolish and inadequate. I
appointed a first-class non-partisan commission of business men and
expert engineers who went into the matter exhaustively, and their report
served as the basis upon which our entire present canal system is based.
There remained the question of determining whether the canal officials
who were in office before I became Governor, and whom I had declined to
reappoint, had been guilty of any action because of which it would be
possible to proceed against them criminally or otherwise under the law.
Such criminal action had been freely charged against them during the
campaign by the Democratic (including the so-called mugwump) press. To
determine this matter I appointed two Democratic lawyers, Messrs. Fox
and MacFarlane (the latter Federal District Attorney for New York under
President Cleveland), and put the whole investigation in their hands.
These gentlemen made an exhaustive investigation lasting several months.
They reported that there had been grave delinquency in the prosecution
of the work, delinquency which justified public condemnation of those
responsible for it (who were out of office), but that there was
no ground for criminal prosecution. I laid their report before the
Legislature with a message in which I said: "There is probably no lawyer
of high standing in the State who, after studying the report of counsel
in this case and the testimony taken by the investigating commission,
would disagree with them as to the impracticability of a successful
prosecution. Under such circumstances the one remedy was a thorough
change in the methods and management. This change has been made."

When my successor in the Governorship took office, Colonel Partridge
retired, and Elon Hooker, finding that he could no longer act with
entire disregard of politics and with an eye single to the efficiency of
the work, also left. A dozen years later--having in the meantime made
a marked success in a business career--he became the Treasurer of the
National Progressive party.

My action in regard to the canals, and the management of his office,
the most important office under me, by Colonel Partridge, established
my relations with Mr. Platt from the outset on pretty nearly the right
basis. But, besides various small difficulties, we had one or two
serious bits of trouble before my duties as Governor ceased. It must be
remembered that Mr. Platt was to all intents and purposes a large part
of, and sometimes a majority of, the Legislature. There were a few
entirely independent men such as Nathaniel Elsberg, Regis Post, and
Alford Cooley, in each of the two houses; the remainder were under the
control of the Republican and Democratic bosses, but could also be more
or less influenced by an aroused public opinion. The two machines were
apt to make common cause if their vital interests were touched. It was
my business to devise methods by which either the two machines could be
kept apart or else overthrown if they came together.

My desire was to achieve results, and not merely to issue manifestoes
of virtue. It is very easy to be efficient if the efficiency is based
on unscrupulousness, and it is still easier to be virtuous if one is
content with the purely negative virtue which consists in not doing
anything wrong, but being wholly unable to accomplish anything positive
for good. My favorite quotation from Josh Billings again applies: It is
so much easier to be a harmless dove than a wise serpent. My duty was to
combine both idealism and efficiency. At that time the public conscience
was still dormant as regards many species of political and business
misconduct, as to which during the next decade it became sensitive. I
had to work with the tools at hand and to take into account the feeling
of the people, which I have already described. My aim was persistently
to refuse to be put in a position where what I did would seem to be a
mere faction struggle against Senator Platt. My aim was to make a fight
only when I could so manage it that there could be no question in the
minds of honest men that my prime purpose was not to attack Mr. Platt
or any one else except as a necessary incident to securing clean and
efficient government.

In each case I did my best to persuade Mr. Platt not to oppose me. I
endeavored to make it clear to him that I was not trying to wrest the
organization from him; and I always gave him in detail the reasons why I
felt I had to take the position I intended to adopt. It was only after I
had exhausted all the resources of my patience that I would finally, if
he still proved obstinate, tell him that I intended to make the fight
anyhow. As I have said, the Senator was an old and feeble man in
physique, and it was possible for him to go about very little. Until
Friday evening he would be kept at his duties at Washington, while I was
in Albany. If I wished to see him it generally had to be at his hotel
in New York on Saturday, and usually I would go there to breakfast with
him. The one thing I would not permit was anything in the nature of a
secret or clandestine meeting. I always insisted on going openly. Solemn
reformers of the tom-fool variety, who, according to their custom, paid
attention to the name and not the thing, were much exercised over my
"breakfasting with Platt." Whenever I breakfasted with him they became
sure that the fact carried with it some sinister significance. The
worthy creatures never took the trouble to follow the sequence of facts
and events for themselves. If they had done so they would have seen that
any series of breakfasts with Platt always meant that I was going to
do something he did not like, and that I was trying, courteously and
frankly, to reconcile him to it. My object was to make it as easy as
possible for him to come with me. As long as there was no clash between
us there was no object in my seeing him; it was only when the clash came
or was imminent that I had to see him. A series of breakfasts was always
the prelude to some active warfare.[*] In every instance I substantially
carried my point, although in some cases not in exactly the way in which
I had originally hoped.

     [*] To illustrate my meaning I quote from a letter of mine
     to Senator Platt of December 13, 1899. He had been trying to
     get me to promote a certain Judge X over the head of another
     Judge Y. I wrote: "There is a strong feeling among the
     judges and the leading members of the bar that Judge Y ought
     not to have Judge X jumped over his head, and I do not see
     my way clear to doing it. I am inclined to think that the
     solution I mentioned to you is the solution I shall have to
     adopt. Remember the breakfast at Douglas Robinson's at
     8:30."

There were various measures to which he gave a grudging and querulous
assent without any break being threatened. I secured the reenactment
of the Civil Service Law, which under my predecessor had very foolishly
been repealed. I secured a mass of labor legislation, including the
enactment of laws to increase the number of factory inspectors, to
create a Tenement House Commission (whose findings resulted in further
and excellent legislation to improve housing conditions), to regulate
and improve sweatshop labor, to make the eight-hour and prevailing rate
of wages law effective, to secure the genuine enforcement of the act
relating to the hours of railway workers, to compel railways to equip
freight trains with air-brakes, to regulate the working hours of women
and protect both women and children from dangerous machinery, to enforce
good scaffolding provisions for workmen on buildings, to provide seats
for the use of waitresses in hotels and restaurants, to reduce the
hours of labor for drug-store clerks, to provide for the registration of
laborers for municipal employment. I tried hard but failed to secure an
employers' liability law and the state control of employment offices.
There was hard fighting over some of these bills, and, what was much
more serious, there was effort to get round the law by trickery and by
securing its inefficient enforcement. I was continually helped by men
with whom I had gotten in touch while in the Police Department; men such
as James Bronson Reynolds, through whom I first became interested in
settlement work on the East Side. Once or twice I went suddenly down to
New York City without warning any one and traversed the tenement-house
quarters, visiting various sweat-shops picked at random. Jake Riis
accompanied me; and as a result of our inspection we got not only
an improvement in the law but a still more marked improvement in its
administration. Thanks chiefly to the activity and good sense of Dr.
John H. Pryor, of Buffalo, and by the use of every pound of pressure
which as Governor I could bring to bear in legitimate fashion--including
a special emergency message--we succeeded in getting through a bill
providing for the first State hospital for incipient tuberculosis. We
got valuable laws for the farmer; laws preventing the adulteration of
food products (which laws were equally valuable to the consumer), and
laws helping the dairyman. In addition to labor legislation I was able
to do a good deal for forest preservation and the protection of our
wild life. All that later I strove for in the Nation in connection with
Conservation was foreshadowed by what I strove to obtain for New York
State when I was Governor; and I was already working in connection with
Gifford Pinchot and Newell. I secured better administration, and some
improvement in the laws themselves. The improvement in administration,
and in the character of the game and forest wardens, was secured partly
as the result of a conference in the executive chamber which I held with
forty of the best guides and woodsmen of the Adirondacks.

As regards most legislation, even that affecting labor and the forests,
I got on fairly well with the machine. But on the two issues in which
"big business" and the kind of politics which is allied to big business
were most involved we clashed hard--and clashing with Senator Platt
meant clashing with the entire Republican organization, and with the
organized majority in each house of the Legislature. One clash was in
connection with the Superintendent of Insurance, a man whose office made
him a factor of immense importance in the big business circles of New
York. The then incumbent of the office was an efficient man, the boss
of an up-State county, a veteran politician and one of Mr. Platt's
right-hand men. Certain investigations which I made--in the course of
the fight--showed that this Superintendent of Insurance had been engaged
in large business operations in New York City. These operations had
thrown him into a peculiarly intimate business contact of one sort and
another with various financiers with whom I did not deem it expedient
that the Superintendent of Insurance, while such, should have any
intimate and secret money-making relations. Moreover, the gentleman
in question represented the straitest sect of the old-time spoils
politicians. I therefore determined not to reappoint him. Unless I could
get his successor confirmed, however, he would stay in under the law,
and the Republican machine, with the assistance of Tammany, expected to
control far more than a majority of all the Senators.

Mr. Platt issued an ultimatum to me that the incumbent must be
reappointed or else that he would fight, and that if he chose to fight
the man would stay in anyhow because I could not oust him--for under the
New York Constitution the assent of the Senate was necessary not only
to appoint a man to office but to remove him from office. As always with
Mr. Platt, I persistently refused to lose my temper, no matter what
he said--he was much too old and physically feeble for there to be any
point of honor in taking up any of his remarks--and I merely explained
good-humoredly that I had made up my mind and that the gentleman
in question would not be retained. As for not being able to get his
successor confirmed, I pointed out that as soon as the Legislature
adjourned I could and would appoint another man temporarily. Mr.
Platt then said that the incumbent would be put back as soon as the
Legislature reconvened; I admitted that this was possible, but
added cheerfully that I would remove him again just as soon as that
Legislature adjourned, and that even though I had an uncomfortable time
myself, I would guarantee to make my opponents more uncomfortable still.
We parted without any sign of reaching an agreement.

There remained some weeks before final action could be taken, and the
Senator was confident that I would have to yield. His most efficient
allies were the pretended reformers, most of them my open or covert
enemies, who loudly insisted that I must make an open fight on the
Senator himself and on the Republican organization. This was what he
wished, for at that time there was no way of upsetting him within the
Republican party; and, as I have said, if I had permitted the contest
to assume the shape of a mere faction fight between the Governor and the
United States Senator, I would have insured the victory of the
machine. So I blandly refused to let the thing become a personal fight,
explaining again and again that I was perfectly willing to appoint an
organization man, and naming two or three whom I was willing to appoint,
but also explaining that I would not retain the incumbent, and would not
appoint any man of his type. Meanwhile pressure on behalf of the said
incumbent began to come from the business men of New York.

The Superintendent of Insurance was not a man whose ill will the big
life insurance companies cared to incur, and company after company
passed resolutions asking me to reappoint him, although in private some
of the men who signed these resolutions nervously explained that they
did not mean what they had written, and hoped I would remove the man. A
citizen prominent in reform circles, marked by the Cato-like austerity
of his reform professions, had a son who was a counsel for one of the
insurance companies. The father was engaged in writing letters to the
papers demanding in the name of uncompromising virtue that I should not
only get rid of the Superintendent of Insurance, but in his place should
appoint somebody or other personally offensive to Senator Platt--which
last proposition, if adopted, would have meant that the Superintendent
of Insurance would have stayed in, for the reasons I have already given.
Meanwhile the son came to see me on behalf of the insurance company he
represented and told me that the company was anxious that there should
be a change in the superintendency; that if I really meant to fight,
they thought they had influence with four of the State Senators,
Democrats and Republicans, whom they could get to vote to confirm
the man I nominated, but that they wished to be sure that I would not
abandon the fight, because it would be a very bad thing for them if I
started the fight and then backed down. I told my visitor that he need
be under no apprehensions, that I would certainly see the fight through.
A man who has much to do with that kind of politics which concerns both
New York politicians and New York business men and lawyers is not easily
surprised, and therefore I felt no other emotion than a rather sardonic
amusement when thirty-six hours later I read in the morning paper
an open letter from the officials of the very company who had been
communicating with me in which they enthusiastically advocated the
renomination of the Superintendent. Shortly afterwards my visitor,
the young lawyer, called me up on the telephone and explained that the
officials did not mean what they had said in this letter, that they had
been obliged to write it for fear of the Superintendent, but that if
they got the chance they intended to help me get rid of him. I thanked
him and said I thought I could manage the fight by myself. I did not
hear from him again, though his father continued to write public demands
that I should practice pure virtue, undefiled and offensive.

Meanwhile Senator Platt declined to yield. I had picked out a man,
a friend of his, who I believed would make an honest and competent
official, and whose position in the organization was such that I did not
believe the Senate would venture to reject him. However, up to the
day before the appointment was to go to the Senate, Mr. Platt remained
unyielding. I saw him that afternoon and tried to get him to yield, but
he said No, that if I insisted, it would be war to the knife, and my
destruction, and perhaps the destruction of the party. I said I was
very sorry, that I could not yield, and if the war came it would have
to come, and that next morning I should send in the name of the
Superintendent's successor. We parted, and soon afterwards I received
from the man who was at the moment Mr. Platt's right-hand lieutenant
a request to know where he could see me that evening. I appointed the
Union League Club. My visitor went over the old ground, explained that
the Senator would under no circumstances yield, that he was certain to
win in the fight, that my reputation would be destroyed, and that he
wished to save me from such a lamentable smash-up as an ending to my
career. I could only repeat what I had already said, and after half an
hour of futile argument I rose and said that nothing was to be gained by
further talk and that I might as well go. My visitor repeated that I
had this last chance, and that ruin was ahead of me if I refused it;
whereas, if I accepted, everything would be made easy. I shook my head
and answered, "There is nothing to add to what I have already said." He
responded, "You have made up your mind?" and I said, "I have." He then
said, "You know it means your ruin?" and I answered, "Well, we will see
about that," and walked toward the door. He said, "You understand, the
fight will begin to-morrow and will be carried on to the bitter end."
I said, "Yes," and added, as I reached the door, "Good night." Then, as
the door opened, my opponent, or visitor, whichever one chooses to call
him, whose face was as impassive and as inscrutable as that of Mr. John
Hamlin in a poker game, said: "Hold on! We accept. Send in So-and-so
[the man I had named]. The Senator is very sorry, but he will make no
further opposition!" I never saw a bluff carried more resolutely
through to the final limit. My success in the affair, coupled with the
appointment of Messrs. Partridge and Hooker, secured me against further
effort to interfere with my handling of the executive departments.

It was in connection with the insurance business that I first met Mr.
George W. Perkins. He came to me with a letter of introduction from the
then Speaker of the National House of Representatives, Tom Reed,
which ran: "Mr. Perkins is a personal friend of mine, whose
straightforwardness and intelligence will commend to you whatever he has
to say. If you will give him proper opportunity to explain his business,
I have no doubt that what he will say will be worthy of your attention."
Mr. Perkins wished to see me with reference to a bill that had just been
introduced in the Legislature, which aimed to limit the aggregate volume
of insurance that any New York State company could assume. There
were then three big insurance companies in New York--the Mutual Life,
Equitable, and New York Life. Mr. Perkins was a Vice-President of
the New York Life Insurance Company and Mr. John A. McCall was its
President. I had just finished my fight against the Superintendent of
Insurance, whom I refused to continue in office. Mr. McCall had written
me a very strong letter urging that he be retained, and had done
everything he could to aid Senator Platt in securing his retention. The
Mutual Life and Equitable people had openly followed the same course,
but in private had hedged. They were both backing the proposed bill. Mr.
McCall was opposed to it; he was in California, and just before starting
thither he had been told by the Mutual Life and Equitable that the
Limitation Bill was favored by me and would be put through if such a
thing were possible. Mr. McCall did not know me, and on leaving for
California told Mr. Perkins that from all he could learn he was sure I
was bent on putting this bill through, and that nothing he could say
to me would change my view; in fact, because he had fought so hard
to retain the old Insurance Superintendent, he felt that I would be
particularly opposed to anything he might wish done.

As a matter of fact, I had no such feeling. I had been carefully
studying the question. I had talked with the Mutual Life and Equitable
people about it, but was not committed to any particular course, and had
grave doubts as to whether it was well to draw the line on size instead
of on conduct. I was therefore very glad to see Perkins and get a new
point of view. I went over the matter with a great deal of care and at
considerable length, and after we had thrashed the matter out pretty
fully and Perkins had laid before me in detail the methods employed by
Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and other European countries to handle
their large insurance companies, I took the position that there
undoubtedly were evils in the insurance business, but that they did not
consist in insuring people's lives, for that certainly was not an evil;
and I did not see how the real evils could be eradicated by limiting or
suppressing a company's ability to protect an additional number of lives
with insurance. I therefore announced that I would not favor a bill that
limited volume of business, and would not sign it if it were passed;
but that I favored legislation that would make it impossible to place,
through agents, policies that were ambiguous and misleading, or to pay
exorbitant prices to agents for business, or to invest policy-holders'
money in improper securities, or to give power to officers to use
the company's funds for their own personal profit. In reaching this
determination I was helped by Mr. Loeb, then merely a stenographer in
my office, but who had already attracted my attention both by his
efficiency and by his loyalty to his former employers, who were for
the most part my political opponents. Mr. Loeb gave me much information
about various improper practices in the insurance business. I began
to gather data on the subject, with the intention of bringing about
corrective legislation, for at that time I expected to continue
in office as Governor. But in a few weeks I was nominated as
Vice-President, and my successor did nothing about the matter.

So far as I remember, this was the first time the question of correcting
evils in a business by limiting the volume of business to be done was
ever presented to me, and my decision in the matter was on all fours
with the position I have always since taken when any similar principle
was involved. At the time when I made my decision about the Limitation
Bill, I was on friendly terms with the Mutual and Equitable people
who were back of it, whereas I did not know Mr. McCall at all, and Mr.
Perkins only from hearing him discuss the bill.

An interesting feature of the matter developed subsequently. Five years
later, after the insurance investigations took place, the Mutual Life
strongly urged the passage of a Limitation Bill, and, because of the
popular feeling developed by the exposure of the improper practices of
the companies, this bill was generally approved. Governor Hughes adopted
the suggestion, such a bill was passed by the Legislature, and Governor
Hughes signed it. This bill caused the three great New York companies to
reduce markedly the volume of business they were doing; it threw a great
many agents out of employment, and materially curtailed the foreign
business of the companies--which business was bringing annually a
considerable sum of money to this country for investment. In short,
the experiment worked so badly that before Governor Hughes went out of
office one of the very last bills he signed was one that permitted the
life insurance companies to increase their business each year by an
amount representing a certain percentage of the business they had
previously done. This in practice, within a few years, practically
annulled the Limitation Bill that had been previously passed. The
experiment of limiting the size of business, of legislating against it
merely because it was big, had been tried, and had failed so completely
that the authors of the bill had themselves in effect repealed it. My
action in refusing to try the experiment had been completely justified.

As a sequel to this incident I got Mr. Perkins to serve on the Palisade
Park Commission. At the time I was taking active part in the effort to
save the Palisades from vandalism and destruction by getting the States
of New York and New Jersey jointly to include them in a public park.
It is not easy to get a responsible and capable man of business to
undertake such a task, which is unpaid, which calls on his part for an
immense expenditure of time, money, and energy, which offers no
reward of any kind, and which entails the certainty of abuse and
misrepresentation. Mr. Perkins accepted the position, and has filled
it for the last thirteen years, doing as disinterested, efficient,
and useful a bit of public service as any man in the State has done
throughout these thirteen years.

The case of most importance in which I clashed with Senator Platt
related to a matter of fundamental governmental policy, and was the
first step I ever took toward bringing big corporations under effective
governmental control. In this case I had to fight the Democratic machine
as well as the Republican machine, for Senator Hill and Senator Platt
were equally opposed to my action, and the big corporation men, the big
business men back of both of them, took precisely the same view of these
matters without regard to their party feelings on other points. What
I did convulsed people at that time, and marked the beginning of the
effort, at least in the Eastern states, to make the great corporations
really responsible to popular wish and governmental command. But we
have gone so far past the stage in which we then were that now it seems
well-nigh incredible that there should have been any opposition at all
to what I at that time proposed.

The substitution of electric power for horse power in the street car
lines of New York offered a fruitful chance for the most noxious type of
dealing between business men and politicians. The franchises granted by
New York were granted without any attempt to secure from the grantees
returns, in the way of taxation or otherwise, for the value received.
The fact that they were thus granted by improper favoritism, a
favoritism which in many cases was unquestionably secured by downright
bribery, led to all kinds of trouble. In return for the continuance
of these improper favors to the corporations the politicians expected
improper favors in the way of excessive campaign contributions, often
contributed by the same corporation at the same time to two opposing
parties. Before I became Governor a bill had been introduced into the
New York Legislature to tax the franchises of these street railways. It
affected a large number of corporations, but particularly those in New
York and Buffalo. It had been suffered to slumber undisturbed, as none
of the people in power dreamed of taking it seriously, and both the
Republican and Democratic machines were hostile to it. Under the rules
of the New York Legislature a bill could always be taken up out of its
turn and passed if the Governor sent in a special emergency message on
its behalf.

After I was elected Governor I had my attention directed to the
franchise tax matter, looked into the subject, and came to the
conclusion that it was a matter of plain decency and honesty that these
companies should pay a tax on their franchises, inasmuch as they did
nothing that could be considered as service rendered the public in lieu
of a tax. This seemed to me so evidently the common-sense and decent
thing to do that I was hardly prepared for the storm of protest and
anger which my proposal aroused. Senator Platt and the other machine
leaders did everything to get me to abandon my intention. As usual,
I saw them, talked the matter all over with them, and did my best to
convert them to my way of thinking. Senator Platt, I believe, was quite
sincere in his opposition. He did not believe in popular rule, and he
did believe that the big business men were entitled to have things their
way. He profoundly distrusted the people--naturally enough, for the kind
of human nature with which a boss comes in contact is not of an exalted
type. He felt that anarchy would come if there was any interference
with a system by which the people in mass were, under various necessary
cloaks, controlled by the leaders in the political and business worlds.
He wrote me a very strong letter of protest against my attitude,
expressed in dignified, friendly, and temperate language, but using one
word in a curious way. This was the word "altruistic." He stated in his
letter that he had not objected to my being independent in politics,
because he had been sure that I had the good of the party at heart, and
meant to act fairly and honorably; but that he had been warned, before
I became a candidate, by a number of his business friends that I was a
dangerous man because I was "altruistic," and that he now feared that
my conduct would justify the alarm thus expressed. I was interested in
this, not only because Senator Platt was obviously sincere, but because
of the way in which he used "altruistic" as a term of reproach, as if it
was Communistic or Socialistic--the last being a word he did use to me
when, as now and then happened, he thought that my proposals warranted
fairly reckless vituperation.

Senator Platt's letter ran in part as follows:

"When the subject of your nomination was under consideration, there was
one matter that gave me real anxiety. I think you will have no
trouble in appreciating the fact that it was _not_ the matter of your
independence. I think we have got far enough along in our political
acquaintance for you to see that my support in a convention does
not imply subsequent 'demands,' nor any other relation that may not
reasonably exist for the welfare of the party. . . . The thing that did
bother me was this: I had heard from a good many sources that you were
a little loose on the relations of capital and labor, on trusts and
combinations, and, indeed, on those numerous questions which have
recently arisen in politics affecting the security of earnings and the
right of a man to run his own business in his own way, with due respect
of course to the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code. Or, to get at it
even more clearly, I understood from a number of business men, and among
them many of your own personal friends, that you entertained various
altruistic ideas, all very well in their way, but which before they
could safely be put into law needed very profound consideration. . . .
You have just adjourned a Legislature which created a good opinion
throughout the State. I congratulate you heartily upon this fact because
I sincerely believe, as everybody else does, that this good impression
exists very largely as a result of your personal influence in the
Legislative chambers. But at the last moment, and to my very great
surprise, you did a thing which has caused the business community of New
York to wonder how far the notions of Populism, as laid down in Kansas
and Nebraska, have taken hold upon the Republican party of the State of
New York."

In my answer I pointed out to the Senator that I had as Governor
unhesitatingly acted, at Buffalo and elsewhere, to put down mobs,
without regard to the fact that the professed leaders of labor furiously
denounced me for so doing; but that I could no more tolerate wrong
committed in the name of property than wrong committed against property.
My letter ran in part as follows:

"I knew that you had just the feelings that you describe; that is, apart
from my 'impulsiveness,' you felt that there was a justifiable anxiety
among men of means, and especially men representing large corporate
interests, lest I might feel too strongly on what you term the
'altruistic' side in matters of labor and capital and as regards the
relations of the State to great corporations. . . . I know that when
parties divide on such issues [as Bryanism] the tendency is to force
everybody into one of two camps, and to throw out entirely men like
myself, who are as strongly opposed to Populism in every stage as the
greatest representative of corporate wealth, but who also feel strongly
that many of these representatives of enormous corporate wealth have
themselves been responsible for a portion of the conditions against
which Bryanism is in ignorant revolt. I do not believe that it is wise
or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere negation and to
say that there are no evils to be corrected. It seems to me that our
attitude should be one of correcting the evils and thereby showing that,
whereas the Populists, Socialists, and others really do not correct the
evils at all, or else only do so at the expense of producing others in
aggravated form; on the contrary we Republicans hold the just balance
and set ourselves as resolutely against improper corporate influence on
the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other. I understand
perfectly that such an attitude of moderation is apt to be misunderstood
when passions are greatly excited and when victory is apt to rest with
the extremists on one side or the other; yet I think it is in the long
run the only wise attitude. . . . I appreciate absolutely [what Mr.
Platt had said] that any applause I get will be too evanescent for a
moment's consideration. I appreciate absolutely that the people who now
loudly approve of my action in the franchise tax bill will forget all
about it in a fortnight, and that, on the other hand, the very powerful
interests adversely affected will always remember it. . . . [The
leaders] urged upon me that I personally could not afford to take this
action, for under no circumstances could I ever again be nominated for
any public office, as no corporation would subscribe to a campaign fund
if I was on the ticket, and that they would subscribe most heavily to
beat me; and when I asked if this were true of Republican corporations,
the cynical answer was made that the corporations that subscribed most
heavily to the campaign funds subscribed impartially to both party
organizations. Under all these circumstances, it seemed to me there
was no alternative but to do what I could to secure the passage of the
bill."

These two letters, written in the spring of 1899, express clearly the
views of the two elements of the Republican party, whose hostility
gradually grew until it culminated, thirteen years later. In 1912 the
political and financial forces of which Mr. Platt had once been the
spokesman, usurped the control of the party machinery and drove out of
the party the men who were loyally endeavoring to apply the principles
of the founders of the party to the needs and issues of their own day.

I had made up my mind that if I could get a show in the Legislature
the bill would pass, because the people had become interested and the
representatives would scarcely dare to vote the wrong way. Accordingly,
on April 27, 1899, I sent a special message to the Assembly, certifying
that the emergency demanded the immediate passage of the bill. The
machine leaders were bitterly angry, and the Speaker actually tore up
the message without reading it to the Assembly. That night they were
busy trying to arrange some device for the defeat of the bill--which
was not difficult, as the session was about to close. At seven the
next morning I was informed of what had occurred. At eight I was in the
Capitol at the Executive chamber, and sent in another special message,
which opened as follows: "I learn that the emergency message which I
sent last evening to the Assembly on behalf of the Franchise Tax Bill
has not been read. I therefore send hereby another message on the
subject. I need not impress upon the Assembly the need of passing this
bill at once." I sent this message to the Assembly, by my secretary,
William J. Youngs, afterwards United States District Attorney of Kings,
with an intimation that if this were not promptly read I should come
up in person and read it. Then, as so often happens, the opposition
collapsed and the bill went through both houses with a rush. I had in
the House stanch friends, such as Regis Post and Alford Cooley, men of
character and courage, who would have fought to a finish had the need
arisen.

My troubles were not at an end, however. The bill put the taxation in
the hands of the local county boards, and as the railways sometimes
passed through several different counties, this was inadvisable. It was
the end of the session, and the Legislature adjourned. The corporations
affected, through various counsel, and the different party leaders
of both organizations, urged me not to sign the bill, laying especial
stress on this feature, and asking that I wait until the following year,
when a good measure could be put through with this obnoxious feature
struck out. I had thirty days under the law in which to sign the bill.
If I did not sign it by the end of that time it would not become a law.
I answered my political and corporation friends by telling them that I
agreed with them that this feature was wrong, but that I would rather
have the bill with this feature than not have it at all; and that I was
not willing to trust to what might be done a year later. Therefore, I
explained, I would reconvene the Legislature in special session, and if
the legislators chose to amend the bill by placing the power of taxation
in the State instead of in the county or municipality, I would be glad;
but that if they failed to amend it, or amended it improperly, I would
sign the original bill and let it become law as it was.

When the representatives of Mr. Platt and of the corporations affected
found they could do no better, they assented to this proposition.
Efforts were tentatively made to outwit me, by inserting amendments that
would nullify the effect of the law, or by withdrawing the law when the
Legislature convened; which would at once have deprived me of the
whip hand. On May 12 I wrote Senator Platt, outlining the amendments I
desired, and said: "Of course it must be understood that I will sign the
present bill if the proposed bill containing the changes outlined above
fails to pass." On May 18 I notified the Senate leader, John Raines,
by telegram: "Legislature has no power to withdraw the Ford bill. If
attempt is made to do so, I will sign the bill at once." On the same
day, by telegram, I wired Mr. Odell concerning the bill the leaders were
preparing: "Some provisions of bill very objectionable. I am at work on
bill to show you to-morrow. The bill must not contain greater changes
than those outlined in my message." My wishes were heeded, and when I
had reconvened the Legislature it amended the bill as I outlined in my
message; and in its amended form the bill became law.

There promptly followed something which afforded an index of the good
faith of the corporations that had been protesting to me. As soon as the
change for which they had begged was inserted in the law, and the law
was signed, they turned round and refused to pay the taxes; and in the
lawsuit that followed, they claimed that the law was unconstitutional,
because it contained the very clause which they had so clamorously
demanded. Senator David B. Hill had appeared before me on behalf of the
corporations to argue for the change; and he then appeared before the
courts to make the argument on the other side. The suit was carried
through to the Supreme Court of the United States, which declared the
law constitutional during the time that I was President.

One of the painful duties of the chief executive in States like New
York, as well as in the Nation, is the refusing of pardons. Yet I can
imagine nothing more necessary from the standpoint of good citizenship
than the ability to steel one's heart in this matter of granting
pardons. The pressure is always greatest in two classes of cases: first,
that where capital punishment is inflicted; second, that where the
man is prominent socially and in the business world, and where in
consequence his crime is apt to have been one concerned in some way with
finance.

As regards capital cases, the trouble is that emotional men and women
always see only the individual whose fate is up at the moment, and
neither his victim nor the many millions of unknown individuals who
would in the long run be harmed by what they ask. Moreover, almost any
criminal, however brutal, has usually some person, often a person whom
he has greatly wronged, who will plead for him. If the mother is alive
she will always come, and she cannot help feeling that the case in which
she is so concerned is peculiar, that in this case a pardon should be
granted. It was really heartrending to have to see the kinsfolk and
friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very
rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose
sleep were the times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a
plea for a criminal so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it
would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment.

On the other hand, there were certain crimes where requests for leniency
merely made me angry. Such crimes were, for instance, rape, or the
circulation of indecent literature, or anything connected with what
would now be called the "white slave" traffic, or wife murder, or gross
cruelty to women and children, or seduction and abandonment, or the
action of some man in getting a girl whom he had seduced to commit
abortion. I am speaking in each instance of cases that actually came
before me, either while I was Governor or while I was President. In an
astonishing number of these cases men of high standing signed petitions
or wrote letters asking me to show leniency to the criminal. In two or
three of the cases--one where some young roughs had committed rape on a
helpless immigrant girl, and another in which a physician of wealth
and high standing had seduced a girl and then induced her to commit
abortion--I rather lost my temper, and wrote to the individuals who had
asked for the pardon, saying that I extremely regretted that it was
not in my power to increase the sentence. I then let the facts be made
public, for I thought that my petitioners deserved public censure.
Whether they received this public censure or not I did not know, but
that my action made them very angry I do know, and their anger gave me
real satisfaction. The list of these petitioners was a fairly long one,
and included two United States Senators, a Governor of a State, two
judges, an editor, and some eminent lawyers and business men.

In the class of cases where the offense was one involving the misuse of
large sums of money the reason for the pressure was different. Cases of
this kind more frequently came before me when I was President, but they
also came before me when I was Governor, chiefly in the cases of county
treasurers who had embezzled funds. A big bank president, a railway
magnate, an official connected with some big corporation, or a
Government official in a responsible fiduciary position, necessarily
belongs among the men who have succeeded in life. This means that his
family are living in comfort, and perhaps luxury and refinement, and
that his sons and daughters have been well educated. In such a case
the misdeed of the father comes as a crushing disaster to the wife and
children, and the people of the community, however bitter originally
against the man, grow to feel the most intense sympathy for the
bowed-down women and children who suffer for the man's fault. It is
a dreadful thing in life that so much of atonement for wrong-doing
is vicarious. If it were possible in such a case to think only of the
banker's or county treasurer's wife and children, any man would pardon
the offender at once. Unfortunately, it is not right to think only of
the women and children. The very fact that in cases of this class there
is certain to be pressure from high sources, pressure sometimes by men
who have been beneficially, even though remotely, interested in the
man's criminality, no less than pressure because of honest sympathy with
the wife and children, makes it necessary that the good public servant
shall, no matter how deep his sympathy and regret, steel his heart and
do his duty by refusing to let the wrong-doer out. My experience of the
way in which pardons are often granted is one of the reasons why I
do not believe that life imprisonment for murder and rape is a proper
substitute for the death penalty. The average term of so-called life
imprisonment in this country is only about fourteen years.

Of course there were cases where I either commuted sentences or pardoned
offenders with very real pleasure. For instance, when President, I
frequently commuted sentences for horse stealing in the Indian Territory
because the penalty for stealing a horse was disproportionate to the
penalty for many other crimes, and the offense was usually committed by
some ignorant young fellow who found a half-wild horse, and really did
not commit anything like as serious an offense as the penalty indicated.
The judges would be obliged to give the minimum penalty, but would
forward me memoranda stating that if there had been a less penalty they
would have inflicted it, and I would then commute the sentence to the
penalty thus indicated.

In one case in New York I pardoned outright a man convicted of murder
in the second degree, and I did this on the recommendation of a friend,
Father Doyle of the Paulist Fathers. I had become intimate with the
Paulist Fathers while I was Police Commissioner, and I had grown to feel
confidence in their judgment, for I had found that they always told me
exactly what the facts were about any man, whether he belonged to their
church or not. In this case the convicted man was a strongly built,
respectable old Irishman employed as a watchman around some big
cattle-killing establishments. The young roughs of the neighborhood,
which was then of a rather lawless type, used to try to destroy the
property of the companies. In a conflict with a watchman a member of one
of the gangs was slain. The watchman was acquitted, but the neighborhood
was much wrought up over the acquittal. Shortly afterwards, a gang of
the same roughs attacked another watchman, the old Irishman in question,
and finally, to save his own life, he was obliged in self-defense to
kill one of his assailants. The feeling in the community, however, was
strongly against him, and some of the men high up in the corporation
became frightened and thought that it would be better to throw over the
watchman. He was convicted. Father Doyle came to me, told me that he
knew the man well, that he was one of the best members of his church,
admirable in every way, that he had simply been forced to fight for his
life while loyally doing his duty, and that the conviction represented
the triumph of the tough element of the district and the abandonment of
this man, by those who should have stood by him, under the influence of
an unworthy fear. I looked into the case, came to the conclusion that
Father Doyle was right, and gave the man a full pardon before he had
served thirty days.

The various clashes between myself and the machine, my triumph in them,
and the fact that the people were getting more and more interested
and aroused, brought on a curious situation in the Republican National
Convention at Philadelphia in June, 1900. Senator Platt and the New
York machine leaders had become very anxious to get me out of the
Governorship, chiefly because of the hostility of the big corporation
men towards me; but they had also become convinced that there was such
popular feeling on my behalf that it would be difficult to refuse me a
renomination if I demanded it. They accordingly decided to push me for
Vice-President, taking advantage of the fact that there was at that time
a good deal of feeling for me in the country at large. [See Appendix B
to this chapter.] I myself did not appreciate that there was any such
feeling, and as I greatly disliked the office of Vice-President and was
much interested in the Governorship, I announced that I would not accept
the Vice-Presidency. I was one of the delegates to Philadelphia. On
reaching there I found that the situation was complicated. Senator
Hanna appeared on the surface to have control of the Convention. He was
anxious that I should not be nominated as Vice-President. Senator Platt
was anxious that I should be nominated as Vice-President, in order to
get me out of the New York Governorship. Each took a position opposite
to that of the other, but each at that time cordially sympathized with
the other's feelings about me--it was the manifestations and not the
feelings that differed. My supporters in New York State did not wish
me nominated for Vice-President because they wished me to continue as
Governor; but in every other State all the people who admired me were
bound that I should be nominated as Vice-President. These people were
almost all desirous of seeing Mr. McKinley renominated as President, but
they became angry at Senator Hanna's opposition to me as Vice-President.
He in his turn suddenly became aware that if he persisted he might find
that in their anger these men would oppose Mr. McKinley's renomination,
and although they could not have prevented the nomination, such
opposition would have been a serious blow in the campaign which was to
follow. Senator Hanna, therefore, began to waver.

Meanwhile a meeting of the New York delegation was called. Most of the
delegates were under the control of Senator Platt. The Senator notified
me that if I refused to accept the nomination for Vice-President I
would be beaten for the nomination for Governor. I answered that I would
accept the challenge, that we would have a straight-out fight on the
proposition, and that I would begin it at once by telling the assembled
delegates of the threat, and giving fair warning that I intended to
fight for the Governorship nomination, and, moreover, that I intended to
get it. This brought Senator Platt to terms. The effort to instruct
the New York delegation for me was abandoned, and Lieutenant-Governor
Woodruff was presented for nomination in my place.

I supposed that this closed the incident, and that no further effort
would be made to nominate me for the Vice-Presidency. On the contrary,
the effect was directly the reverse. The upset of the New York machine
increased the feeling of the delegates from other States that it was
necessary to draft me for the nomination. By next day Senator Hanna
himself concluded that this was a necessity, and acquiesced in the
movement. As New York was already committed against me, and as I was
not willing that there should be any chance of supposing that the New
Yorkers had nominated me to get rid of me, the result was that I was
nominated and seconded from outside States. No other candidate was
placed in the field.

By this time the Legislature had adjourned, and most of my work as
Governor of New York was over. One unexpected bit of business arose,
however. It was the year of the Presidential campaign. Tammany, which
had been lukewarm about Bryan in 1896, cordially supported him in
1900; and when Tammany heartily supports a candidate it is well for the
opposing candidate to keep a sharp lookout for election frauds. The city
government was in the hands of Tammany; but I had power to remove
the Mayor, the Sheriff, and the District Attorney for malfeasance or
misfeasance in office. Such power had not been exercised by any previous
Governor, as far as I knew; but it existed, and if the misfeasance or
malfeasance warranted it, and if the Governor possessed the requisite
determination, the power could be, and ought to be, exercised.

By an Act of the Legislature, a State Bureau of Elections had been
created in New York City, and a Superintendent of Elections appointed
by the Governor. The Chief of the State Bureau of Elections was
John McCullagh, formerly in the Police Department when I was Police
Commissioner. The Chief of Police for the city was William F. Devery,
one of the Tammany leaders, who represented in the Police Department
all that I had warred against while Commissioner. On November 4 Devery
directed his subordinates in the Police Department to disregard the
orders which McCullagh had given to his deputies, orders which were
essential if we were to secure an honest election in the city. I had
just returned from a Western campaign trip, and was at Sagamore Hill. I
had no direct power over Devery; but the Mayor had; and I had power over
the Mayor. Accordingly, I at once wrote to the Mayor of New York, to the
Sheriff of New York, and to the District Attorney of New York County the
following letters:

STATE OF NEW YORK OYSTER BAY, November 5, 1900.

To the Mayor of the City of New York.

Sir: My attention has been called to the official order issued by Chief
of Police Devery, in which he directs his subordinates to disregard the
Chief of the State Election Bureau, John McCullagh, and his deputies.
Unless you have already taken steps to secure the recall of this order,
it is necessary for me to point out that I shall be obliged to hold you
responsible as the head of the city government for the action of the
Chief of Police, if it should result in any breach of the peace and
intimidation or any crime whatever against the election laws. The State
and city authorities should work together. I will not fail to call to
summary account either State or city authority in the event of either
being guilty of intimidation or connivance at fraud or of failure to
protect every legal voter in his rights. I therefore hereby notify
you that in the event of any wrong-doing following upon the failure
immediately to recall Chief Devery's order, or upon any action or
inaction on the part of Chief Devery, I must necessarily call you to
account.

Yours, etc., THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

STATE OF NEW YORK OYSTER BAY, November 5, 1900.

To the Sheriff of the County of New York.

Sir: My attention has been called to the official order issued by Chief
of Police Devery in which he directs his subordinates to disregard the
Chief of the State Election Bureau, John McCullagh, and his deputies.

It is your duty to assist in the orderly enforcement of the law, and I
shall hold you strictly responsible for any breach of the public peace
within your county, or for any failure on your part to do your full duty
in connection with the election to-morrow.

Yours truly, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

STATE OF NEW YORK OYSTER BAY, November 5, 1900.

To the District Attorney of the County of New York.

Sir: My attention has been called to the official order issued by Chief
of Police Devery, in which he directs his subordinates to disregard the
Chief of the State Election Bureau, John McCullagh, and his deputies.

In view of this order I call your attention to the fact that it is your
duty to assist in the orderly enforcement of the law, and there must be
no failure on your part to do your full duty in the matter.

Yours truly, THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

These letters had the desired effect. The Mayor promptly required Chief
Devery to rescind the obnoxious order, which was as promptly done. The
Sheriff also took prompt action. The District Attorney refused to heed
my letter, and assumed an attitude of defiance, and I removed him from
office. On election day there was no clash between the city and State
authorities; the election was orderly and honest.

APPENDIX A

CONSERVATION

As foreshadowing the course I later, as President, followed in this
matter, I give extracts from one of my letters to the Commission, and
from my second (and last) Annual Message. I spent the first months of my
term in investigations to find out just what the situation was.

On November 28, 1899, I wrote to the Commission as follows:

". . . I have had very many complaints before this as to the
inefficiency of the game wardens and game protectors, the complaints
usually taking the form that the men have been appointed and are
retained without due regard to the duties to be performed. I do not wish
a man to be retained or appointed who is not thoroughly fit to perform
the duties of game protector. The Adirondacks are entitled to a peculiar
share of the Commission's attention, both from the standpoint of
forestry, and from the less important, but still very important,
standpoint of game and fish protection. The men who do duty as game
protectors in the Adirondacks should, by preference, be appointed from
the locality itself, and should in all cases be thorough woodsmen. The
mere fact that a game protector has to hire a guide to pilot him through
the woods is enough to show his unfitness for the position. I want
as game protectors men of courage, resolution, and hardihood, who can
handle the rifle, ax, and paddle; who can camp out in summer or winter;
who can go on snow-shoes, if necessary; who can go through the woods by
day or by night without regard to trails.

"I should like full information about all your employees, as to their
capacities, as to the labor they perform, as to their distribution from
and where they do their work."

Many of the men hitherto appointed owed their positions principally to
political preference. The changes I recommended were promptly made,
and much to the good of the public service. In my Annual Message, in
January, 1900, I said:

"Great progress has been made through the fish hatcheries in the
propagation of valuable food and sporting fish. The laws for the
protection of deer have resulted in their increase. Nevertheless, as
railroads tend to encroach on the wilderness, the temptation to illegal
hunting becomes greater, and the danger from forest fires increases.
There is need of great improvement both in our laws and in their
administration. The game wardens have been too few in number. More
should be provided. None save fit men must be appointed; and their
retention in office must depend purely upon the zeal, ability, and
efficiency with which they perform their duties. The game wardens in the
forests must be woodsmen; and they should have no outside business.
In short, there should be a thorough reorganization of the work of
the Commission. A careful study of the resources and condition of the
forests on State land must be made. It is certainly not too much to
expect that the State forests should be managed as efficiently as the
forests on private lands in the same neighborhoods. And the measure
of difference in efficiency of management must be the measure of
condemnation or praise of the way the public forests have been managed.

"The subject of forest preservation is of the utmost importance to
the State. The Adirondacks and Catskills should be great parks kept in
perpetuity for the benefit and enjoyment of our people. Much has been
done of late years towards their preservation, but very much remains to
be done. The provisions of law in reference to sawmills and wood-pulp
mills are defective and should be changed so as to prohibit dumping
dye-stuff, sawdust, or tan-bark, in any amount whatsoever, into the
streams. Reservoirs should be made, but not where they will tend to
destroy large sections of the forest, and only after a careful and
scientific study of the water resources of the region. The people of
the forest regions are themselves growing more and more to realize the
necessity of preserving both the trees and the game. A live deer in the
woods will attract to the neighborhood ten times the money that could
be obtained for the deer's dead carcass. Timber theft on the State lands
is, of course, a grave offense against the whole public.

"Hardy outdoor sports, like hunting, are in themselves of no small value
to the National character and should be encouraged in every way. Men who
go into the wilderness, indeed, men who take part in any field sports
with horse or rifle, receive a benefit which can hardly be given by even
the most vigorous athletic games.

"There is a further and more immediate and practical end in view. A
primeval forest is a great sponge which absorbs and distills the rain
water. And when it is destroyed the result is apt to be an alternation
of flood and drought. Forest fires ultimately make the land a desert,
and are a detriment to all that portion of the State tributary to the
streams through the woods where they occur. Every effort should be made
to minimize their destructive influence. We need to have our system of
forestry gradually developed and conducted along scientific principles.
When this has been done it will be possible to allow marketable lumber
to be cut everywhere without damage to the forests--indeed, with
positive advantage to them. But until lumbering is thus conducted,
on strictly scientific principles no less than upon principles of the
strictest honesty toward the State, we cannot afford to suffer it at
all in the State forests. Unrestrained greed means the ruin of the great
woods and the drying up of the sources of the rivers.

"Ultimately the administration of the State lands must be so centralized
as to enable us definitely to place responsibility in respect to
everything concerning them, and to demand the highest degree of trained
intelligence in their use.

"The State should not permit within its limits factories to make bird
skins or bird feathers into articles of ornament or wearing apparel.
Ordinary birds, and especially song birds, should be rigidly protected.
Game birds should never be shot to a greater extent than will offset the
natural rate of increase. . . . Care should be taken not to encourage
the use of cold storage or other market systems which are a benefit to
no one but the wealthy epicure who can afford to pay a heavy price for
luxuries. These systems tend to the destruction of the game, which would
bear most severely upon the very men whose rapacity has been appealed to
in order to secure its extermination. . . ."

I reorganized the Commission, putting Austin Wadsworth at its head.

APPENDIX B

THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN 1900

My general scheme of action as Governor was given in a letter I wrote
one of my supporters among the independent district organization
leaders, Norton Goddard, on April 16, 1900. It runs in part as follows:
"Nobody can tell, and least of all the machine itself, whether the
machine intends to renominate me next fall or not. If for some reason I
should be weak, whether on account of faults or virtues, doubtless the
machine will throw me over, and I think I am not uncharitable when I say
they would feel no acute grief at so doing. It would be very strange if
they did feel such grief. If, for instance, we had strikes which led
to riots, I would of course be obliged to preserve order and stop the
riots. Decent citizens would demand that I should do it, and in any
event I should do it wholly without regard to their demands. But, once
it was done, they would forget all about it, while a great many laboring
men, honest but ignorant and prejudiced, would bear a grudge against
me for doing it. This might put me out of the running as a candidate.
Again, the big corporations undoubtedly want to beat me. They prefer
the chance of being blackmailed to the certainty that they will not be
allowed any more than their due. Of course they will try to beat me
on some entirely different issue, and, as they are very able and very
unscrupulous, nobody can tell that they won't succeed. . . . I have been
trying to stay in with the organization. I did not do it with the idea
that they would renominate me. I did it with the idea of getting things
done, and in that I have been absolutely successful. Whether Senator
Platt and Mr. Odell endeavor to beat me, or do beat me, for the
renomination next fall, is of very small importance compared to the fact
that for my two years I have been able to make a Republican majority
in the Legislature do good and decent work and have prevented any split
within the party. The task was one of great difficulty, because, on the
one hand, I had to keep clearly before me the fact that it was better to
have a split than to permit bad work to be done, and, on the other hand,
the fact that to have that split would absolutely prevent all _good_
work. The result has been that I have avoided a split and that as a net
result of my two years and the two sessions of the Legislature,
there has been an enormous improvement in the administration of the
Government, and there has also been a great advance in legislation."

To show my reading of the situation at the time I quote from a letter
of mine to Joseph B. Bishop, then editor of the _Commercial Advertiser_,
with whom towards the end of my term I had grown into very close
relations, and who, together with two other old friends, Albert Shaw,
of the _Review of Reviews_, and Silas McBee, now editor of the
_Constructive Quarterly_, knew the inside of every movement, so far as I
knew it myself. The letter, which is dated April 11, 1900, runs in part
as follows: "The dangerous element as far as I am concerned comes from
the corporations. The [naming certain men] crowd and those like them
have been greatly exasperated by the franchise tax. They would like to
get me out of politics for good, but at the moment they think the best
thing to do is to put me into the Vice-Presidency. Naturally I will
not be opposed openly on the ground of the corporations' grievance; but
every kind of false statement will continually be made, and men like
[naming the editors of certain newspapers] will attack me, not as the
enemy of corporations, but as their tool! There is no question whatever
that if the leaders can they will upset me."

One position which as Governor (and as President) I consistently took,
seems to me to represent what ought to be a fundamental principle in
American legislative work. I steadfastly refused to advocate any law, no
matter how admirable in theory, if there was good reason to believe that
in practice it would not be executed. I have always sympathized with the
view set forth by Pelatiah Webster in 1783--quoted by Hannis Taylor
in his _Genesis of the Supreme Court_--"Laws or ordinances of any kind
(especially of august bodies of high dignity and consequence) which
fail of execution, are much worse than none. They weaken the government,
expose it to contempt, destroy the confidence of all men, native and
foreigners, in it, and expose both aggregate bodies and individuals who
have placed confidence in it to many ruinous disappointments which
they would have escaped had no such law or ordinance been made." This
principle, by the way, not only applies to an internal law which cannot
be executed; it applies even more to international action, such as a
universal arbitration treaty which cannot and will not be kept; and
most of all it applies to proposals to make such universal arbitration
treaties at the very time that we are not keeping our solemn promise
to execute limited arbitration treaties which we have already made. A
general arbitration treaty is merely a promise; it represents merely a
debt of honorable obligation; and nothing is more discreditable, for
a nation or an individual, than to cover up the repudiation of a debt
which can be and ought to be paid, by recklessly promising to incur a
new and insecure debt which no wise man for one moment supposes ever
will be paid.