The Superintendent of Insurance was not a man whose ill will the big life insurance companies cared to incur, and company after company passed resolutions asking me to reappoint him, although in private some of the men who signed these resolutions nervously explained that they did not mean what they had written, and hoped I would remove the man.  A citizen prominent in reform circles, marked by the Cato-like austerity of his reform professions, had a son who was a counsel for one of the insurance companies.  The father was engaged in writing letters to the papers demanding in the name of uncompromising virtue that I should not only get rid of the Superintendent of Insurance, but in his place should appoint somebody or other personally offensive to Senator Platt—­which last proposition, if adopted, would have meant that the Superintendent of Insurance would have stayed in, for the reasons I have already given.  Meanwhile the son came to see me on behalf of the insurance company he represented and told me that the company was anxious that there should be a change in the superintendency; that if I really meant to fight, they thought they had influence with four of the State Senators, Democrats and Republicans, whom they could get to vote to confirm the man I nominated, but that they wished to be sure that I would not abandon the fight, because it would be a very bad thing for them if I started the fight and then backed down.  I told my visitor that he need be under no apprehensions, that I would certainly see the fight through.  A man who has much to do with that kind of politics which concerns both New York politicians and New York business men and lawyers is not easily surprised, and therefore I felt no other emotion than a rather sardonic amusement when thirty-six hours later I read in the morning paper an open letter from the officials of the very company who had been communicating with me in which they enthusiastically advocated the renomination of the Superintendent.  Shortly afterwards my visitor, the young lawyer, called me up on the telephone and explained that the officials did not mean what they had said in this letter, that they had been obliged to write it for fear of the Superintendent, but that if they got the chance they intended to help me get rid of him.  I thanked him and said I thought I could manage the fight by myself.  I did not hear from him again, though his father continued to write public demands that I should practice pure virtue, undefiled and offensive.

Meanwhile Senator Platt declined to yield.  I had picked out a man, a friend of his, who I believed would make an honest and competent official, and whose position in the organization was such that I did not believe the Senate would venture to reject him.  However, up to the day before the appointment was to go to the Senate, Mr. Platt remained unyielding.  I saw him that afternoon and tried to get him to yield, but he said No, that if I insisted, it would be war