There were a few of the Senators and Assemblymen whom I could reach by seeing them personally and putting before them my arguments; but most of them were too much under the control of the machine for me to shake them loose unless they knew that the people were actively behind me.  In making my appeal to the people as a whole I was dealing with an entirely different constituency from that which, especially in the big cities, liked to think of itself as the “better element,” the particular exponent of reform and good citizenship.  I was dealing with shrewd, hard-headed, kindly men and women, chiefly concerned with the absorbing work of earning their own living, and impatient of fads, who had grown to feel that the associations with the word “reformer” were not much better than the associations with the word “politician.”  I had to convince these men and women of my good faith, and, moreover, of my common sense and efficiency.  They were most of them strong partisans, and an outrage had to be very real and very great to shake them even partially loose from their party affiliations.  Moreover, they took little interest in any fight of mere personalities.  They were not influenced in the least by the silk-stocking reform view of Mr. Platt.  I knew that if they were persuaded that I was engaged in a mere faction fight against him, that it was a mere issue between his ambition and mine, they would at once become indifferent, and my fight would be lost.

But I felt that I could count on their support wherever I could show them that the fight was not made just for the sake of the row, that it was not made merely as a factional contest against Senator Platt and the organization, but was waged from a sense of duty for real and tangible causes such as the promotion of governmental efficiency and honesty, and forcing powerful moneyed men to take the proper attitude toward the community at large.  They stood by me when I insisted upon having the canal department, the insurance department, and the various departments of the State Government run with efficiency and honesty; they stood by me when I insisted upon making wealthy men who owned franchises pay the State what they properly ought to pay; they stood by me when, in connection with the strikes on the Croton Aqueduct and in Buffalo, I promptly used the military power of the State to put a stop to rioting and violence.

In the latter case my chief opponents and critics were local politicians who were truckling to the labor vote; but in all cases coming under the first two categories I had serious trouble with the State leaders of the machine.  I always did my best, in good faith, to get Mr. Platt and the other heads of the machine to accept my views, and to convince them, by repeated private conversations, that I was right.  I never wantonly antagonized or humiliated them.  I did not wish to humiliate them or to seem victorious over them; what I wished was to secure the things that I thought it essential to the men and women of the State to secure.  If I could finally persuade them to support me, well and good; in such case I continued to work with them in the friendliest manner.