n! He handed me the
telegram. The man in question was a man I liked; later I appointed him
to an important office in which he did well. But he came from a city
along the line of the canal, so that I did not think it best that he
should be appointed anyhow; and, moreover, what was far more important,
it was necessary to have it understood at the very outset that the
Administration was my Administration and was no one else's but mine. So
I told the Senator very politely that I was sorry, but that I could not
appoint his man. This produced an explosion, but I declined to lose my
temper, merely repeating that I must decline to accept any man chosen
for me, and that I must choose the man myself. Although I was very
polite, I was also very firm, and Mr. Platt and his friends finally
abandoned their position.

I appointed an engineer from Brooklyn, a veteran of the Civil War,
Colonel Partridge, who had served in Mayor Low's administration. He was
an excellent man in every way. He chose as his assistant, actively to
superintend the work, a Cornell graduate named Elon Hooker, a man with
no political backing at all, picked simply because he was the best
equipped man for the place. The office, the most important office under
me, was run in admirable fashion throughout my Administration; I
doubt if there ever was an important department of the New York State
Government run with a higher standard of efficiency and integrity.

But this was not all that had to be done about the canals. Evidently
the whole policy hitherto pursued had been foolish and inadequate. I
appointed a first-class non-partisan commission of business men and
expert engineers who went into the matter exhaustively, and their report
served as the basis upon which our entire present canal system is based.
There remained the question of determining whether the canal officials
who were in office before I became Governor, and whom I had declined to
reappoint, had been guilty of any action because of which it would be
possible to proceed against them criminally or otherwise under the law.
Such criminal action had been freely charged against them during the
campaign by the Democratic (including the so-called mugwump) press. To
determine this matter I appointed two Democratic lawyers, Messrs. Fox
and MacFarlane (the latter Federal District Attorney for New York under
President Cleveland), and put the whole investigation in their hands.
These gentlemen made an exhaustive i