I reorganized the Commission, putting Austin Wadsworth at its head.

APPENDIX B

THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN 1900

My general scheme of action as Governor was given in a letter I wrote one of my supporters among the independent district organization leaders, Norton Goddard, on April 16, 1900.  It runs in part as follows:  “Nobody can tell, and least of all the machine itself, whether the machine intends to renominate me next fall or not.  If for some reason I should be weak, whether on account of faults or virtues, doubtless the machine will throw me over, and I think I am not uncharitable when I say they would feel no acute grief at so doing.  It would be very strange if they did feel such grief.  If, for instance, we had strikes which led to riots, I would of course be obliged to preserve order and stop the riots.  Decent citizens would demand that I should do it, and in any event I should do it wholly without regard to their demands.  But, once it was done, they would forget all about it, while a great many laboring men, honest but ignorant and prejudiced, would bear a grudge against me for doing it.  This might put me out of the running as a candidate.  Again, the big corporations undoubtedly want to beat me.  They prefer the chance of being blackmailed to the certainty that they will not be allowed any more than their due.  Of course they will try to beat me on some entirely different issue, and, as they are very able and very unscrupulous, nobody can tell that they won’t succeed. . . .  I have been trying to stay in with the organization.  I did not do it with the idea that they would renominate me.  I did it with the idea of getting things done, and in that I have been absolutely successful.  Whether Senator Platt and Mr. Odell endeavor to beat me, or do beat me, for the renomination next fall, is of very small importance compared to the fact that for my two years I have been able to make a Republican majority in the Legislature do good and decent work and have prevented any split within the party.  The task was one of great difficulty, because, on the one hand, I had to keep clearly before me the fact that it was better to have a split than to permit bad work to be done, and, on the other hand, the fact that to have that split would absolutely prevent all good work.  The result has been that I have avoided a split and that as a net result of my two years and the two sessions of the Legislature, there has been an enormous improvement in the administration of the Government, and there has also been a great advance in legislation.”