the young man who was "ever a fighter" went on his way, fighting evil
to the death wherever he found it, achieving results, making friends
eagerly and enemies blithely, learning, broadening, growing. Already he
had made a distinct impression upon his times.

CHAPTER V. FIGHTING AND BREAKFASTING WITH PLATT

From the New York Police Department Roosevelt was called by President
McKinley to Washington in 1897, to become Assistant Secretary of the
Navy. After a year there--the story of which belongs elsewhere in this
volume--he resigned to go to Cuba as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Rough
Riders. He was just as prominent in that war for liberty and justice
as the dimensions of the conflict permitted. He was accustomed in after
years to say with deprecating humor, when talking to veterans of the
Civil War, "It wasn't much of a war, but it was all the war we had." It
made him Governor of New York.

When he landed with his regiment at Montauk Point from Cuba, he was met
by two delegations. One consisted of friends from his own State who were
political independents; the other came from the head of the Republican
political machine.

Both wanted him as a candidate for Governor. The independents were
anxious to have him make a campaign against the Old Guard of both the
standard parties, fighting Richard Croker, the cynical Tammany boss, on
the one side, and Thomas C. Platt, the "easy boss" of the Republicans,
on the other. Tom Platt did not want him at all. But he did want to win
the election, and he knew that he must have something superlatively
fine to offer, if he was to have any hope of carrying the discredited
Republican party to victory. So he swallowed whatever antipathy he may
have had and offered the nomination to Roosevelt. This was before the
days when the direct primary gave the plain voters an opportunity to
upset the calculations of a political boss.

Senator Platt's emissary, Lemuel Ely Quigg, in a two hours' conversation
in the tent at Montauk, asked some straight-from-the-shoulder questions.
The answers he received were just as unequivocal. Mr. Quigg wanted a
plain statement as to whether or not Roosevelt wanted the nomination.
He wanted to know what Roosevelt's attitude would be toward the
organization in the event of his election, whether or not he would "make
war" on Mr. Platt and his friends, or whether he would confer with them
and give fair consideration to their point of view as to party
policy and pub