hat could be considered as service rendered the public in lieu
of a tax. This seemed to me so evidently the common-sense and decent
thing to do that I was hardly prepared for the storm of protest and
anger which my proposal aroused. Senator Platt and the other machine
leaders did everything to get me to abandon my intention. As usual,
I saw them, talked the matter all over with them, and did my best to
convert them to my way of thinking. Senator Platt, I believe, was quite
sincere in his opposition. He did not believe in popular rule, and he
did believe that the big business men were entitled to have things their
way. He profoundly distrusted the people--naturally enough, for the kind
of human nature with which a boss comes in contact is not of an exalted
type. He felt that anarchy would come if there was any interference
with a system by which the people in mass were, under various necessary
cloaks, controlled by the leaders in the political and business worlds.
He wrote me a very strong letter of protest against my attitude,
expressed in dignified, friendly, and temperate language, but using one
word in a curious way. This was the word "altruistic." He stated in his
letter that he had not objected to my being independent in politics,
because he had been sure that I had the good of the party at heart, and
meant to act fairly and honorably; but that he had been warned, before
I became a candidate, by a number of his business friends that I was a
dangerous man because I was "altruistic," and that he now feared that
my conduct would justify the alarm thus expressed. I was interested in
this, not only because Senator Platt was obviously sincere, but because
of the way in which he used "altruistic" as a term of reproach, as if it
was Communistic or Socialistic--the last being a word he did use to me
when, as now and then happened, he thought that my proposals warranted
fairly reckless vituperation.

Senator Platt's letter ran in part as follows:

"When the subject of your nomination was under consideration, there was
one matter that gave me real anxiety. I think you will have no
trouble in appreciating the fact that it was _not_ the matter of your
independence. I think we have got far enough along in our political
acquaintance for you to see that my support in a convention does
not imply subsequent 'demands,' nor any other relation that may not
reasonably exist for the welfare of the party. . . . The thing that did
bother