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men conversed, sitting in Roosevelt's tent. course the errand upon which Mr. Quigg had come was apparent to the three men. Senator Platt had sent him to sound this young Lochinvar, and to judge whether he could be trusted, after he got the election which seemed quite sure to "work harmoniously" with "Boss" Platt, which meant giving Platt his own way in everything he cared about and taking what he left.

During two hours they talked. Quigg clothed his anxious inquiries in the usual political cant, and Roosevelt gave the plain, unyielding reply that if elected he would confer with Platt and with others on the various questions as they arose and then would himself decide. Further, he declared that he sincerely desired harmony of policy and the good of both the party and the State.

With that message- the best he could extract from Roosevelt Quigg went back to Platt, the campaign was soon on, and the young reformer, fresh from Cuban victories, went up and down the State in a whirlwind campaign, enjoying it all to the full, and gaining supporters every time he spoke. Jacob Riis and other admirers shared in the toil and the delights of the campaign. Riis records that one ardent cowboy Rough Rider, "Buck" Taylor, speaking at a rally, exhorted his hearers to "Foller ma Colonel! Foller ma Colonel!

An' he'll lead you, as he led us, like lambs to the slaughter." Cautious, anxious Thomas C. Platt, professional politician, gave him a half-hearted, hopeful support. He said afterward, "Roosevelt made a dramatic campaign. He fairly pranced up and down the State. And he called a spade ‘a spade' and a crook 'a crook.""

Early in the campaign Roosevelt showed strategic acumen. The Democratic candidate, Judge Van Wyck, was a man of good character and capacity, and he was not much open to attack personally. But his political lieutenant, Croker, "Boss" of Tammany, was a man of inferior grade; "a powerful and truculent man" Roosevelt calls him. The young reformer attacked Croker, drew him into the open, and there made his fight, showing the "Boss" up as the real and corrupt leader of the Democratic forces. It was an easier, more definite contest, thus, than it could have been against Van Wyck.

The result of the campaign was that Roosevelt was elected, but by only the narrow margin of eighteen thousand plurality. One reason for the narrowness of this margin was that the more extreme "Independents", so called, stood out against Roosevelt. They were men of the academic type, with high, vague aims and a narrow range of ceptions and sympathies. The trenchant and

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somewhat heated- description of them given by Roosevelt was that "their 'Independence' consisted of one part moral obliquity and two parts mental infirmity." They demanded of him that he defy Platt in good, old-fashioned, stage-drama fashion. They had not the breadth of mind to see that he was trying to get all the help he could from Platt and the professional politicians of the party, corrupt though they might be. This was his wise, fruitful policy throughout his term of office. As a discerning friend wrote about him, "He did not intend to pose on the solitary gubernatorial peak of abortive righteousness."

After his election, one of our classmates asked Roosevelt jocosely, "Now, Theodore, what kind of a governor are you going to be?" And the reply was ready. "I'm going to be just as good a kind as the politicians will let me be." That reply revealed the two factors in his public career which now were becoming fixed in his mind and will. He determined to push his methods and reforms as close up to perfection as he could push them,—and still keep the support of the more or less imperfect party that elected him. His purpose might be described not as a vacuous circle, like that of the theoretical, easily shelved "Independents", but as a productive ellipse, with two centers, the one idealistic and the other practical.

A brief description of him I here cite, as given by Charles G. Washburn in the course of an eloquent memorial address made in Boston by him on October 27, 1920. "What manner of man was this whom we honor to-night? A man unlike any other man whom we have ever known or read about, a character as transparent as a child's, tender in his family relations, a faithful friend, — but, when roused, in conflict terrible; and, when fighting for a great cause, he loved to ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm."

That was the mature man - he was already that, at the age of thirty who was entering the arena of New York politics. No wonder that Croker raged and Platt trembled. Coming events were "casting their shadows before" - for corrupt politicians in both the great parties.

When once entered upon his duties as Governor, Roosevelt put the same energy and industry into his work that he had always put into whatever work lay before him. In scores of ways he went beyond the routine duties of his office and improved and reformed existing conditions. That was his fixed attitude toward public affairs. resting himself, perhaps -to write his "Rough Riders" and "Oliver Cromwell." Looking back now at his two years as Governor, we may say that his greatest work was shown in four important

He found time —

measures which he pushed through. They were, first, through the suggestion of Riis, the creation of the Tenement House Commission Bill. It was, in large measure, a following up and enforcing of the sweatshop reform which he had taken up when an assemblyman. Second, the office of Superintendent of Public Works, involving control of the State canals, needed revision; and Roosevelt revised it. Third, the big corporations who had obtained franchises to use public thoroughfares for street railways had never shared their profits with the People, the Public, who really owned those thoroughfares and from whom the corporations had obtained the right of way. Roosevelt made those companies pay for value received. Then, fourth, there was the office of Superintendent of Insurance. The man who held that governmental position was engaged in various business enterprises which prevented him from being wholly free and disinterested in carrying out the duties of his office. Roosevelt replaced him with a less involved official.

In all these acts Roosevelt met intense opposition, on the part of Platt and other "bosses”, and on the part of the corporations and individuals whose incomes and honors and peace of mind he disturbed. He was clearly aware of the complicated conditions under which he worked.

Mr.