The complete clew to Mr. Hanna's philosophy of politics is thus summed up by his penetrating and sympathetic biographer, Mr. Croly: "We must bear in mind that (1) he was an industrial pioneer and instinctively took to politics as well as to business; (2) that in politics as in business he wanted to accomplish results; (3) that politics meant to him active party service; (4) that successful party service meant to him the acceptance of prevailing political methods and abuses; and (5) finally that he was bound by the instinctive consistency of his nature to represent in politics, not merely his other dominant interest, but the essential harmony between the interests of business and that of the whole community." In other words, Mr. Hanna believed consistently and honestly in the superior fitness of business men to conduct the politics of a country which was predominantly commercial in character. He was not unaware of the existence of a working class; in fact he was said to be a generous and sympathetic employer of labor; but he could not conceive the use of government instrumentalities frankly in behalf of that class. Indeed, he thought that the chief function of the government was to help business and not to inquire into its methods or interfere with its processes. An illustration of Mr. Hanna's theory of governmental impotence in the presence of the dominant private interests was afforded in the debate in the Senate over the price to be paid for armor plate, in the summer of 1900. The Senate proposed that not more than a stipulated price should be paid to the two steel companies, Carnegie and Bethlehem, which were not competing with each other; and that, in case they failed to accept, a government manufacturing plant should be erected. Mr. Hanna's proposition was that the price of steel should be left, as the House had proposed, with the Secretary of the Navy, and he warmly resisted all government interference. When it was brought out in debate that the steel companies had refused the government officers the data upon which to determine whether the price charged was too high, Mr. Hanna declared: "They did perfectly right in not disclosing those facts. That is their business; and if they chose not to give the information to the public, that was their business also." In short, he took the position that the government should provide ample protection to the steel interests against foreign competition, and pay substantially whatever the steel companies might charge for armor plate (for without proper data the Secretary of the Navy could not know when prices were reasonable), and then ask them no questions whatever. Here we have both _laissez faire_ and capitalism in their simplest form.