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, and then proceeded to set
forth his own view of the matter. With his usual almost uncanny
wisdom in human relations, he based his argument on party
expediency, which he knew Platt would comprehend, rather than on
abstract considerations of right and wrong, in which realm the
boss would be sure to feel rather at sea. He wrote thus:

"I know that when parties divide on such issues [as Bryanism] the
tendency is to force everybody into one of two camps, and to
throw out entirely men like myself, who are as strongly opposed
to Populism in every stage as the greatest representative of
corporate wealth but who also feel strongly that many of these
representatives of enormous corporate wealth have themselves been
responsible for a portion of the conditions against which
Bryanism is in ignorant revolt. I do not believe that it is wise
or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere negation and to