me, for my visit seemed to have made no impression on him whatever. Whenever I would come around to the plea that he be friendly to your nomination, a sphinx would have been eloquent compared to the sudden silence of his lips. Unless he shall change his mind I fear your nomination will be impossible.' The Colonel was nominated. After the Convention, one of the men with whom I went back to the hotel for dinner, the day of the interviews, told me that, when I left that night, the Senator called the group of State leaders, who were stopping at the hotel. He said that he told them the night before that Governor Black would have to be renominated or there would be a split in the Republican party, but Doctor Iglehart had been down to see him and had given him four reasons why Colonel Roosevelt should be nominated, three of which he considered valid. On the strength of them he had concluded to reverse his opinion and favor Mr. Roosevelt's nomination. The gentlemen said that from that moment Roosevelt was as good as nominated. Senator Platt afterward told me that it was my visit to Manhattan Beach and the arguments I urged which changed his mind. Colonel Roosevelt told me that it was my visit to the Senator that afternoon that had much to do in putting him on the ticket, and after his nomination he sent me the following letter: OYSTER BAY, L. I., OCTOBER 3, 1898. DR. FERDINAND IGLEHART, 245 Liberty Street, Newburgh, N. Y. MY DEAR DR. IGLEHART: Nobody has a better right to be pleased than yourself. Be sure I appreciate what you have done. With warm regards, I am, Faithfully yours, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Just after his election as Governor he sent me a beautiful telegram of greeting and appreciation which money cannot buy. Chairman Odell worked ably, loyally and successfully in the campaign for Colonel Roosevelt, and he was elected by a majority of 17,786 votes. Governor Roosevelt entered upon his great office with vigor and enthusiasm, making every question and department tingle at his touch; a reformer by birth and by years of education, he found evils in the State which he felt demanded immediate attention. Grounded in his notions of Civil Service Reform, he insisted upon the re-enactment of a Civil Service Law which had been declared unconstitutional by the court and made the law stronger than the original one was. He had been down in the slum district of New York when he was a young man just entering politics; he had been down into this submerged region while Police Commissioner and as a member of the Board of Health he saw the suffering and ill-health of the poor on account of the cramped quarters, bad air and want of sunlight and pure water, and he secured the passage of the Tenement House Reform Law with a Tenement House Commission to see that it was properly enforced. He felt that there were abuses in the insurance department which needed correcting and that Lou Payne, a "dyed-in-the-wool" friend of Senator Platt, was a barrier to the reform, and at the risk of irritation and criticism he removed Mr. Payne and brought a healthful change in the Insurance Department. With a heart always going out after the poor, and with a desire to help those of them who were not given a fair chance, the Governor set himself in earnest to improve the condition of the laboring class of the State. He secured an eight-hour law; strict factory laws, including the employers' liability, the protection of women and children in the industrial world; a cure for the worst evils of the sweatshop, and other helpful measures. He secured the building of a State hospital for the cure of consumptives in the first stage of this disease. Perhaps the most conspicuous and far-reaching measure, which he pressed under tremendous opposition, was the Corporation Franchise Tax Law. He insisted that these mammoth corporations, which received such a generous franchise, should be made to pay their full share of the burden of the State. Some of the foremost Republicans of the State took issue with him on this subject and fought the measure bitterly. In answer to them he said, "It seems to me that our attitude should be one of correcting the evils and thereby showing that, whereas the Populists and Socialists, and others, do not really 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 a just balance and set ourselves as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other." The friends of moral reform in New York had introduced a bill against professional boxing with a fee at the door. I had remembered how, as a sickly boy, those of his size had licked and bullied Theodore and how his father had engaged a trainer to instruct him in boxing, and how much physical benefit and courage he derived and how much genuine joy he got out of that severe form of athletics. And hence I knew that the bill for innocent boxing, in itself, would not be objectionable to him, but I knew also that he had a |