Mr. Phillips, however, was asking no more than was his due: renomination at the hands of his party. By every consideration both of merit and custom it was his due. His official record was _efficiency, faithful execution, striking ability and uncompromising honesty_. But by very virtue of his honesty and ability he had gone up against the two powers in this country that go furthest to make or unmake Presidents: law-breaking corporations and machine politicians. The Greed and The Graft could never be at ease while a Fearless Honesty abode in the White House. They long had planned to displace Mr. Phillips. The fight was not an open one, with each army aligned under its own banners. It was a night attack where the clash and the struggle could be heard and felt but the assailants could not be distinguished and called by name. Mr. Phillips could well imagine who were the leaders of his enemies, but they were too shrewd as yet to openly declare their opposition. The consummate skill with which the campaign was conducted made it appear that there was a growing manifestation of the people’s disapproval. The boomlets of a dozen or more favourite sons were assiduously cultivated each in its limited field—but all by the master hand. The favourite sons as a rule deprecated the mention of their names and waived it aside as unworthy of serious thought; but it takes a very great or a very small man to recognize his own unfitness for the presidency of the nation,—and modesty would permit no favourite son to say he was too big for the office. Mr. Phillips was not of the holy sort that is above using some of the traditional methods of the politician. With good conscience he could drive men to righteousness when necessity demanded it: and believing that his own re-election would be for the country’s weal he would not have hesitated perhaps to turn the power of the administration to that purpose if he had not been measurably handicapped. He was an honest man—as his predecessors in office had been. He desired—as they had desired before him—to give the country a clean and honest lot of officials to administer its interests. But, unlike some of the Presidents gone before, he had made extraordinary personal efforts to see and know for himself that the men of the government corps were of honest purposes at heart and honest practices in office. Result: many and many a cog-wheel, great and small, in the machine had been broken and thrown into the scrap pile.