omic system, and who neither by personality nor by programme
gave the ordinary plain people any belief that there was promise of
vital good to them in the change. The correctness of their view was
proved by the fact that as soon as fundamental economic and social
reforms were at stake the aesthetic, as distinguished from the genuinely
moral, reformers, for the most part sided with the bosses against the
people.

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 ove