While it was announced as pending, I was urged by various friends to speak of the subject to Mr. Platt, who as the only Republican senator from New York and the head of the Republican organization, was supposed to have large rights in the matter. It was hinted to me that some statement to Mr. Platt on the subject was required by political etiquette and would smooth the President's way. My answer was that I felt respect and friendship for Mr. Platt; that I called at his rooms from time to time socially, and discussed various public matters with him; but that I could never make a request to him in the premises; that I could not put myself in the attitude of a suppliant, even in the slightest degree, to him or even to the President. The result was that the President himself spoke to Mr. Platt on the subject, and, as I was afterward informed, the senator replied that he would make no objection, but that the appointment ought not to be charged against the claims of the State of New York. The presidential campaign of 1900, in which Mr. McKinley was presented for re<e:>lection, touched me but slightly. There came various letters urging me to become a candidate for the Vice-Presidency, and sundry newspapers presented reasons for my nomination, the main argument being the same which had been formerly used as regarded the governorship of New York--that the German-Americans were estranged from the Republican party by the high tariff, and that I was the only Republican who could draw them to the ticket. All this I deprecated, and refused to take any part in the matter, meantime writing my nephew, who had become my successor in the State Senate, my friend Dr. Holls, and others, to urge the, name of Theodore Roosevelt. I had known him for many years and greatly admired him. His integrity was proof against all attack, his courage undoubted, and his vigor amazing. It was clear that he desired renomination for the place he already held--the governorship of New York--partly because he was devoted to certain reforms, which he could carry out only in that position, and partly because he preferred activity as governor of a great State to the usually passive condition of a Vice-President of the United States. Moreover, he undoubtedly had aspirations to the Presidency. These were perfectly legitimate, and indeed hon- orable, in him, as they are in any man who feels that he has the qualities needed in that high office. He and his friends clearly felt that the transition from the governorship of New York to the Presidency four years later would be more natural than that from the Vice-Presidency; but in my letters I insisted that his name would greatly strengthen the national ticket, and that his road to the Presidency seemed to me more easy from the Vice-Presidency than from the governorship; that, although during recent years Vice-Presidents had not been nominated to the higher office, during former years they had been; and