he East Side. Once or twice I went suddenly down to
New York City without warning any one and traversed the tenement-house
quarters, visiting various sweat-shops picked at random. Jake Riis
accompanied me; and as a result of our inspection we got not only
an improvement in the law but a still more marked improvement in its
administration. Thanks chiefly to the activity and good sense of Dr.
John H. Pryor, of Buffalo, and by the use of every pound of pressure
which as Governor I could bring to bear in legitimate fashion--including
a special emergency message--we succeeded in getting through a bill
providing for the first State hospital for incipient tuberculosis. We
got valuable laws for the farmer; laws preventing the adulteration of
food products (which laws were equally valuable to the consumer), and
laws helping the dairyman. In addition to labor legislation I was able
to do a good deal for forest preservation and the protection of our
wild life. All that later I strove for in the Nation in connection with
Conservation was foreshadowed by what I strove to obtain for New York
State when I was Governor; and I was already working in connection with
Gifford Pinchot and Newell. I secured better administration, and some
improvement in the laws themselves. The improvement in administration,
and in the character of the game and forest wardens, was secured partly
as the result of a conference in the executive chamber which I held with
forty of the best guides and woodsmen of the Adirondacks.

As regards most legislation, even that affecting labor and the forests,
I got on fairly well with the machine. But on the two issues in which
"big business" and the kind of politics which is allied to big business
were most involved we clashed hard--and clashing with Senator Platt
meant clashing with the entire Republican organization, and with the
organized majority in each house of the Legislature. One clash was in
connection with the Superintendent of Insurance, a man whose office made
him a factor of immense importance in the big business circles of New
York. The then incumbent of the office was an efficient man, the boss
of an up-State county, a veteran politician and one of Mr. Platt's
right-hand men. Certain investigations which I made--in the course of
the fight--showed that this Superintendent of Insurance had been engaged
in large business operations in New York City. These operations had
thrown him into a peculiarly intimate bu