party. Mr. Platt was a feeble man, who found it difficult to get
about. Roosevelt was a chivalrous man, who believed that courtesy and
consideration were due to age and weakness. In addition, he liked to
make every minute count. So he used to go, frankly and openly, to the
Senator's hotel for breakfast. He was not one of that class which he has
described as composed of "solemn reformers of the tom-fool variety,
who, according to their custom, paid attention to the name and not the
thing." He cared only for the reality; the appearance mattered little to
him.

The tom-fool reformers who criticized Roosevelt for meeting Platt at
breakfast were not even good observers. If they had been, they would
have realized that when Roosevelt breakfasted with Platt, it generally
meant that he was trying to reconcile the Senator to something he was
going to do which the worthy boss did not like. For instance, Roosevelt
once wrote to Platt, who was trying to get him to promote a certain
judge over the head of another judge: "There is a strong feeling among
the judges and the leading members of the bar that Judge Y ought not
to have Judge X jumped over his head, and I do not see my way clear to
doing it. I am inclined to think that the solution I mentioned to you
is the solution I shall have to adopt. Remember the breakfast at Douglas
Robinson's at 8:30." It is probable that the Governor enjoyed that
breakfast more than did the Senator. So it usually was with the famous
breakfasts. "A series of breakfasts was always the prelude to some
active warfare."

For Roosevelt and Platt still had their pitched battles. The most
epic of them all was fought over the reappointment of the State
Superintendent of Insurance. The incumbent was Louis F. Payn, a veteran
petty boss from a country district and one of Platt's right-hand
men. Roosevelt discovered that Payn had been involved in compromising
relations with certain financiers in New York with whom he "did not deem
it expedient that the Superintendent of Insurance, while such, should
have any intimate and money-making relations." The Governor therefore
decided not to reappoint him. Platt issued an ultimatum that Payn must
be reappointed or he would fight. He pointed out that in case of a fight
Payn would stay in anyway, since the consent of the State Senate was
necessary not only to appoint a man to office but to remove him from
office. The Governor replied cheerfully that he had made up his mind