York and the best fitted man in the country to bring about
reforms in the Government of the United States. No reforms were
needed: but a fact like that never interfered with a reform
campaign." The orthodoxy of the politician remained unshaken.
Foraker's reasons were the creed of thousands: "The Republican
party had prosecuted the war successfully; had reconstructed the
States; had rehabilitated our finances, and brought on specie
redemption." The memoirs of politicians and statesmen of this
period, such as Cullom, Foraker, Platt, even Hoar, are imbued
with an inflexible faith in the party and colored by the
conviction that it is a function of Government to aid business.
Platt, for instance, alluding to Blaine's attitude as Speaker, in
the seventies, said: "What I liked about him was his frank and
persistent contention that the citizen who best loved his party
and was loyal to it, was loyal to and best loved his country."
And many years afterwards, when a new type of leader appeared
representing a new era of conviction, Platt was deeply concerned.
His famous letter to Roosevelt, when the Rough Rider was being
mentioned for Governor of New York (1899), shows the reluctance
of the old man to see the signs of the times: "The thing that
really did bother me was this: I had heard from a great many
sources that you were a little loose on the relations of capital
and labor, on trusts and combinations, and indeed on the numerous
questions which have recently arisen in politics affecting the
security of earnings and the right of a man to run his own
business in his own way, with due respect of course to the Ten
Commandments and the Penal Code."

* "Notes from a Busy Life", vol. I., 98.