In New York State, United States Senator Platt was the absolute boss of the Republican party.  “Big business” was back of him; yet at the time this, the most important element in his strength, was only imperfectly understood.  It was not until I was elected Governor that I myself came to understand it.  We were still accustomed to talking of the “machine” as if it were something merely political, with which business had nothing to do.  Senator Platt did not use his political position to advance his private fortunes—­therein differing absolutely from many other political bosses.  He lived in hotels and had few extravagant tastes.  Indeed, I could not find that he had any tastes at all except for politics, and on rare occasions for a very dry theology wholly divorced from moral implications.  But big business men contributed to him large sums of money, which enabled him to keep his grip on the machine and secured for them the help of the machine if they were threatened with adverse legislation.  The contributions were given in the guise of contributions for campaign purposes, of money for the good of the party; when the money was contributed there was rarely talk of specific favors in return.[*] It was simply put into Mr. Platt’s hands and treated by him as in the campaign chest.  Then he distributed it in the districts where it was most needed by the candidates and organization leaders.  Ordinarily no pledge was required from the latter to the bosses, any more than it was required by the business men from Mr. Platt or his lieutenants.  No pledge was needed.  It was all a “gentlemen’s understanding.”  As the Senator once said to me, if a man’s character was such that it was necessary to get a promise from him, it was clear proof that his character was such that the promise would not be worth anything after it was made.

[*] Each nation has its own pet sins to which it is merciful and also sins which it treats as most abhorrent.  In America we are peculiarly sensitive about big money contributions for which the donors expect any reward.  In England, where in some ways the standard is higher than here, such contributions are accepted as a matter of course, nay, as one of the methods by which wealthy men obtain peerages.  It would be well-nigh an impossibility for a man to secure a seat in the United States Senate by mere campaign contributions, in the way that seats in the British House of Lords have often been secured without any scandal being caused thereby.

It must not be forgotten that some of the worst practices of the machine in dealings of this kind represented merely virtues in the wrong place, virtues wrenched out of proper relation to their surroundings.  A man in a doubtful district might win only because of the help Mr. Platt gave him; he might be a decent young fellow without money enough to finance his own campaign, who was able to finance it only because Platt of his own accord found out or was apprised of his