st 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 we