Theodore Roosevelt: an Autobiography — Ch 08-The New York Governorship, pt 2

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.