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 businessmen, 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 program 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
