siness contact of one sort and
another with various financiers with whom I did not deem it expedient
that the Superintendent of Insurance, while such, should have any
intimate and secret money-making relations. Moreover, the gentleman
in question represented the straitest sect of the old-time spoils
politicians. I therefore determined not to reappoint him. Unless I could
get his successor confirmed, however, he would stay in under the law,
and the Republican machine, with the assistance of Tammany, expected to
control far more than a majority of all the Senators.

Mr. Platt issued an ultimatum to me that the incumbent must be
reappointed or else that he would fight, and that if he chose to fight
the man would stay in anyhow because I could not oust him--for under the
New York Constitution the assent of the Senate was necessary not only
to appoint a man to office but to remove him from office. As always with
Mr. Platt, I persistently refused to lose my temper, no matter what
he said--he was much too old and physically feeble for there to be any
point of honor in taking up any of his remarks--and I merely explained
good-humoredly that I had made up my mind and that the gentleman
in question would not be retained. As for not being able to get his
successor confirmed, I pointed out that as soon as the Legislature
adjourned I could and would appoint another man temporarily. Mr.
Platt then said that the incumbent would be put back as soon as the
Legislature reconvened; I admitted that this was possible, but
added cheerfully that I would remove him again just as soon as that
Legislature adjourned, and that even though I had an uncomfortable time
myself, I would guarantee to make my opponents more uncomfortable still.
We parted without any sign of reaching an agreement.

There remained some weeks before final action could be taken, and the
Senator was confident that I would have to yield. His most efficient
allies were the pretended reformers, most of them my open or covert
enemies, who loudly insisted that I must make an open fight on the
Senator himself and on the Republican organization. This was what he
wished, for at that time there was no way of upsetting him within the
Republican party; and, as I have said, if I had permitted the contest
to assume the shape of a mere faction fight between the Governor and the
United States Senator, I would have insured the victory of the
machine. So I blandly refused to let the thing be