Mr. Sulzer further testified at this hearing that on the evening of March 3, 1913, at a luncheon in Washington, he told Senator O’Gorman that Mr. Murphy was putting the “screws” on him and bringing to bear all the influence he could to have James E. Gaffney appointed Commissioner of Highways, and that Senator O’Gorman had said: “Governor, if you appoint Jim Gaffney Commissioner of Highways it will be a disgrace to the State of New York and it will ruin your political career as the Governor. Don’t you know that Gaffney is Murphy’s chief bagman? Don’t you know he is the man Murphy sends out to hold up the contractors? Don’t you know he is the man that held up my client, James G. Stewart, for over a hundred thousand dollars, and he would have got away with it if Stewart had not come to me, and if I had not gone to Murphy and read the Riot Act, telling him that I would not stand for that kind of politics; that he had to stop Gaffney, and that if he didn’t stop Gaffney, so far as my client was concerned, I would expose him.” Subsequently Mr. Sulzer met Mr. Murphy several times, and was importuned (so he testified) to appoint Mr. Gaffney. When Sulzer replied that it was impossible, Mr. Murphy announced, “Well, it’s Gaffney or war.” Mr. Sulzer’s testimony went on: “At this conversation, one of the things Mr. Murphy said to me was, ‘If you don’t do this, I will wreck your administration.’ It was not the first time he had threatened me, and I answered, ‘I am the Governor, and I am going to be the Governor.’ He said, ‘You may be the Governor, but I have got the Legislature, and the Legislature controls the Governor, and if you don’t do what I tell you to do, I will throw you out of office.’” After Governor Sulzer had removed Reel, Mr. Murphy was still pressing Gaffney’s appointment. Of the inquiries into graft carried on by George W. Blake and John W. Hennessy, Mr. Sulzer testified: “Their reports staggered me, and believe me, it takes something to stagger me. There was graft, graft everywhere, nor any man to stop it.” Mr. Sulzer testified that Mr. Murphy had sought to hamper the graft exposure by causing to be cut off--for the first time in the State’s history, he said--the Governor’s contingent fund, and he described how it became necessary to raise money by private subscription to enable the graft inquiry to be carried on. “I have been in office now for six months,” wrote Mr. Sulzer in a signed article later, “and in that time I have learned enough to be able to say without fear of contradiction that in the past three years $50,000,000 of the people’s money has been wasted or stolen.”