Under my attack, Croker, who was a stalwart fighting man and who would not take an attack tamely, himself came to the front.

I was able to fix the contest in the public mind as one between himself and myself; and, against all probabilities, I won by the rather narrow margin of eighteen thousand plurality.
As I have already said, there is a lunatic fringe to every reform movement.

At least nine-tenths of all the sincere reformers supported me; but the ultra-pacifists, the so-called anti-imperialists, or anti-militarists, or peace-at-any-price men, preferred Croker to me; and another knot of extremists who had at first ardently insisted that I must be "forced" on Platt, as soon as Platt supported me themselves opposed me _because_ he supported me.

After election John Hay wrote me as follows: "While you are Governor, I believe the party can be made solid as never before.

You have already shown that a man may be absolutely honest and yet practical; a reformer by instinct and a wise politician; brave, bold, and uncompromising, and yet not a wild ass of the desert.