l a special
session to amend the bill. Again he agreed. The session was called, and
the amendments were proposed. In addition, however, certain amendments
that would have frustrated the whole purpose of the bill were suggested.
The organization, still at its old tricks, tried to get back into its
possession the bill already passed. But the Governor was not easily
caught napping. He knew as well as they did that possession of the bill
gave him the whip hand. He served notice that the second bill would
contain precisely the amendments agreed upon and no others. Otherwise
he would sign the first bill and let it become law, with all its
imperfections on its head. Once more the organization and the
corporations emulated Davy Crockett's coon and begged him not to shoot,
for they would come down. The amended bill was passed and became
law. But there was an epilogue to this little drama. The corporations
proceeded to attack the constitutionality of the law on the ground of
the very amendment for which they had so clamorously pleaded. But they
failed. The Supreme Court of the United States, after Roosevelt had
become President, affirmed the constitutionality of the law.

The spectacular events of Roosevelt's governorship were incidents in
this conflict between two political philosophies, the one held by
Platt and his tribe, the other by Roosevelt. Extracts from two letters
exchanged by the Senator and the Governor bring the contrast between
these philosophies into clear relief. Platt wrote as follows:

"When the subject of your nomination was under consideration, there was
one matter that gave me real anxiety.... I had heard from a good many
sources that you were a little loose on the relations of capital and
labor, on trusts and combinations, and, indeed, on those numerous
questions which have recently arisen in politics affecting the security
of earnings and the right of a man to run his business in his own way,
with due respect, of course, to the Ten Commandments and the Penal
Code. Or, to get at it even more clearly, I understood from a number of
business men, and among them many of your own personal friends, that you
entertained various altruistic ideas, all very well in their way, but
which before they could safely be put into law needed very profound
consideration." *

* Roosevelt, "Autobiography" (Scribner), p. 299.

Roosevelt replied that he had known very well that the Senator had just
these feelings about him, a