I went first to see the governor—E. W. Hoch—a humorless and honest man. It was he who had sponsored the state refinery. I found him impressed by what he had done, but a little doubtful about how things were going to come out. He was opening his mail when I went in and he showed me letters nominating him for the Presidency. He had been receiving many of them, he said. It was obvious they came from radical socialists rejoicing over the encouragement that he was giving to the public ownership of industry. He liked the applause but did not like the source. He was no socialist, he protested to me. He was a firm believer in the competitive system. The state refinery was a “measuring stick.” He had wanted to settle definitely just what the profits of the refinery business in Kansas were. Nobody knew except experts, and they wouldn’t tell. A first-class oil refinery would settle for all time the cost of refining Kansas oil and force the sale at a reasonable price. He was not trying to drive private industry out of the state. He merely wanted to force private industry to be reasonable—the private industry being of course the Standard Oil Company. Governor Hoch and the state as a whole were soon feeling the effect of the letdown which always follows an exciting legislative campaign, particularly for the winner. Not since the early nineties had Kansas enjoyed so rousing a time. And now it was over and they had to come down to business. But could they get down to business? Could they administer the new laws? Meetings were being held, half in jubilation over the successful legislation, half in anxiety about the next step. I was asked to come and speak at one of them. I was no speaker, but I could not let them down. Moreover, because of my familiarity with past exciting experiments on the part of indignant oil independents I realized better than they did, so I thought, the hard pull they had before them. “Your problem now,” I told them, “is to do business. As far as laws can insure it you have free opportunity; but good laws and free opportunity alone do not build up a business. Unless you can be as efficient and as patient, as farseeing as your great competitor—laws or no laws, you will not succeed. You must make yourselves as good refiners, as good transporters, as good marketers, as ingenious, as informed, as imaginative in your legitimate undertakings as they are in both their legitimate and illegitimate.” My speech was not popular. What they wanted from me was a rousing attack on the Standard Oil Company. They wanted a Mary Lease to tell them to go on raising hell, and here I was telling them they had got all they could by raising hell and now they must settle down to doing business. “You have gone over to the Standard Oil Company?” said one disgusted Populist.