He was then in his forty-first year. Many problems faced him and none were evaded. He was well aware that the "organization" under Senator Platt would not like many things he was sure to do, but he determined that he would have neither personal quarrels nor faction fights. He knew, being blessed with strong common sense, that the Republican Party, his own party, was the instrument by which alone he could attain his ends, and he did not intend that it should be blunted and made useless by internal strife. And yet he meant to have his own way. It was a difficult role which he undertook to play, but he succeeded. He had many differences with the organization managers, but he declined to lose his temper or to have a break, and he also refused to yield when he felt he was standing for the right and a principle was at stake. Thus he prevailed. He won on the canal question, changed the insurance commissioner, and carried the insurance legislation he desired. As in these cases, so it was in lesser things. In the police commission he had been strongly impressed by the dangers as he saw them of the undue and often sinister influence of business, finance, and great money interests upon government and politics. These feelings were deepened and broadened by his experience and observation on the larger stage of State administration. The belief that political equality must be strengthened and sustained by industrial equality and a larger economic opportunity was constantly in his thoughts until it became a governing and guiding principle.