He made up his mind that the Republican party organization offered the best chance for the achievement of his object. As it then was, however, the Republican organization of the district in question served but little purpose save to deliver delegates in conventions, and was under the control of men who, although some degrees above the Tammany leaders, had no conception of running things on the plane which Goddard deemed necessary. There were three courses open to him: He could acquiesce helplessly; he could start an outside organization, in which case the chances were a thousand to one that it would amount to nothing; or he could make a determined effort to control for good purposes the existing Republican organization. He chose the latter alternative, and began a serious campaign to secure his object. There was at the time a fight in the Republican organization between two factions, both of which were headed by professional politicians. Both factions at the outset looked upon Goddard’s methods with amused contempt, expecting that he would go the gait which they had seen so many other young men go, where they lacked either persistency or hard common-sense. But Goddard was a practical man. He spent his days and evenings in perfecting his own organization, using the Civic Club as a centre. He already had immense influence in the district, thanks to what he had done in the Civic Club, and at this, his first effort, he was able to make an organization which, while it could not have availed against the extraordinary drill and discipline of Tammany, was able overwhelmingly to beat the far feebler machine of the regular Republican politicians. At the primary he got more votes than both his antagonists put together. No man outside of politics can realize the paralyzed astonishment with which the result was viewed by the politicians in every other Assembly district. Here at last was a reformer whose aspirations took exceedingly efficient shape as deeds; who knew what could and what could not be done; who was never content with less than the possible best, but who never threw away that possible best because it was not the ideal best; who did not try to reform the universe, but merely his own district; and who understood thoroughly that though speeches and essays are good, downright hard work of the common-sense type is infinitely better.