Both wanted him as a candidate for Governor. The independents
were anxious to have him make a campaign against the Old Guard of
both the standard parties, fighting Richard Croker, the cynical
Tammany boss, on the one side, and Thomas C. Platt, the "easy
boss" of the Republicans, on the other. Tom Platt did not want
him at all. But he did want to win the election, and he knew that
he must have something superlatively fine to offer, if he was to
have any hope of carrying the discredited Republican party to
victory. So he swallowed whatever antipathy he may have had and
offered the nomination to Roosevelt. This was before the days
when the direct primary gave the plain voters an opportunity to
upset the calculations of a political boss.

Senator Platt's emissary, Lemuel Ely Quigg, in a two hours'
conversation in the tent at Montauk, asked some straight-
from-the-shoulder questions. The answers he received were just as
unequivocal. Mr. Quigg wanted a plain statement as to whether or
not Roosevelt wanted the nomination. He wanted to know what
Roosevelt's attitude would be toward the organization in the
event of his election, whether or not he would "make war" on Mr.
Platt and his friends, or whether he would confer with them and
give fair consideration to their point of view as to party policy
and public interest. In short, he wanted a frank definition of
Roosevelt's attitude towards existing party conditions. He got
precisely that. Here it is, in Roosevelt's own words:

"I replied that I should like to be nominated, and if nominated
would promise to throw myself into the campaign with all possible
energy. I said that I should not make war on Mr. Platt or anybody
else if war could be avoided; that what I wanted was to be