to be so truly prophetic that a part of it is quoted with the hope that future governors may take the cue by arranging to make their programs before and after election match:

"You wish to know what my relations would be with the Democrats whose power and influence you fear should I be elected governor, particularly in such important matters as appointments and the signing of bills, and I am very glad to tell you. If elected I shall not either in the matter of appointments to office, or assent to legislation, or in shaping any part of the policy of my administration, submit to the dictation of any person, or persons, special interests,' or organization. I will always welcome advice and suggestions from any citizen, whether boss, leader, organization man, or plain citizen, and I shall constantly seek the advice of influential and disinterested men representative of their communities and disconnected from political organizations entirely; but all suggestions, and all advice, will be considered on its merits and no additional weight will be given to any man's advice because of his exercising, or supposing that he exercises, some sort of political influence or control. I should deem myself forever disgraced should I, in even the slightest degree, co-operate in any such system. I regard myself as pledged to the regeneration of the Democratic party."

Mr. Record also inquired: "Do you admit that the boss system exists as I have described it? If so how do you propose to abolish it?”

Mr. Wilson said:

"Of course I admit it. Its existence is notorious. I have made it my business for many years to observe and understand that system, and I hate it as thoroughly as I understand it. You are quite right in saying that the system is bi-partisan; that it constitutes the most dangerous condition in the public life of our State and nation to-day'; and that it has virtually, for the time being, 'destroyed representative government and in its place set up a government of privilege.' I would propose to abolish it by the reforms suggested in the Democratic platform, by the election to office of men who will refuse to submit to it, and who will lend all their energies to break it up, and by pitiless publicity."

Still hoping to corner the Governor, Mr. Record named the bosses:

"In referring to the Board of Guardians, do you mean such Republican leaders as Baird, Murphy, Kean, and Stokes? Wherein do the relations of the special interests of such leaders differ from the relation of the same interests of such Democratic leaders as Smith, Nugent, and Davis?"

Mr. Wilson answering this, said:

"I refer to the men you named. I mean Smith, Nugent, and Davis. They differ from the others in this, that they are in control of the government of the State while the others are not, and cannot be if the present Democratic ticket is elected."

In reply to Mr. Record's question, "Will you join me in denouncing the Democratic 'overlords' as parties to a political boss system?" Doctor Wilson replied, "Certainly I will join you, or any one else, in denouncing and fighting every and any one of either party who attempts any outrages against the government and public morrality."

Such utterances as these only made the "bosses" smile. James Smith, Jr., once remarked, upon an occasion when he heard Doctor Wilson declare that if elected to the governorship he would be left free to exercise a leadership uninfluenced by the dictation of any "special interests," "He talks like that in Newark, and can get away with it. He is a great man." But it was Mr. Smith who misunderstood Doctor Wilson; not the people.

When the election returns came in, they showed that the Republican party, which, we remember, had had control of the Legislature for sixteen years, and which had elected Republican governors since 1896, was admirably walloped. The "Grand Old Elephant" could not hedge by attributing the whole of its defeat to the influence of the nation-wide revolt against the party in power. That many of the causes of the landslide in this State were local, was indicated by the plump plurality of more than 49,000 for Governor Wilson, whereas ex-Governor John Franklin Fort's plurality, in 1907, was only 8000 Republican.

CHAPTER III

66

THE SMITH-MARTINE CONTROVERSY

Be thankful for what you get unless it is what is really coming to you."-JOHN L. HOBBLE'S column in New York Evening World.

"When scholars become doers then a new era will begin.”— DUDLEY FIELD MALONE, Assistant Corporation Counsel of New York.

THE bleachers on the diamond are sometimes amazed at the combination of honesty and skill exhibited by amateur players, who have observed much but practised little. From the time the Governor-elect stepped out of the batter's box to hit the first curve it promised to be a rich, rare, and racy game, between the Machine League and the People's Team. The Governor was bound to succeed because he gave all his attention to the game and none to the grandstand. It was a most exciting event. The winning team was to be awarded the United States senatorship in the 1911 contest.

Heretofore the election of a United States senator had always been a simple process, executed by the machine,

"in a corner." The people, of course, had had no voice in the matter.

The Senatorial Preference Primary Law, enacted in 1907, was to be operative for the first time. James E. Martine, Democrat, farmer, and reformer, had received more votes in the primaries than any other candidate. Many legislators of both Houses had promised their constituents that they would vote for that candidate for United States senator who received the highest number of votes in the primary contest, and there was a plank, as broad as a lumber camp, in the Democratic State Platform favoring a national constitutional amendment for the election of United States senators by popular vote. And the Democrats had swept the State.

Now were they to prove themselves sidesteppers and trimmers or were they to establish a principle which should become a sacred precedent?

It happened that there were a few who, for the sake of personal convenience, preferred the former policy and they assumed the "What-has-posterity-done-for-us" attitude. Among these was James Smith, Jr., the courtly State boss, whom Lord Byron might have described as:

"The mildest-mannered man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat;