health, the problems created by the congestion of population in our great cities, lead to a constant extension of governmental activity from which we cannot have, and we would not seek, escape.

This extension compels the strictest insistence upon the highest administrative standWe are a government of laws and not

ards. of men. We subordinate individual caprice to defined duty. The essentials of our liberties are expressed in constitutional enactments removed from the risk of temporary agitation. But the security of our government, despite its constitutional guaranties, is found in the intelligence and public spirit of its citizens and in its ability to call to the work of administration men of single-minded devotion to the public interests, who make unselfish service to the State a point of knightly honor.

If in administration we make the standard efficiency and not partisan advantage, if in executing the laws we deal impartially, if in making the laws there is fair and intelligent action with reference to each exigency, we shall disarm reckless and selfish agitators and take from the enemies of our peace their vantage ground of attack.

It is my intention to employ my constitu

tional powers to this end. I believe in the sincerity and good sense of the people. I believe that they are intent on having government which recognizes no favored interests and which is not conducted in any part for selfish ends. They will not be, and they should not be, content with less.

Relying upon your support and hoping to deserve your continued confidence, with the single desire to safeguard your interests and to secure the honorable administration of the office to which you have called me, I now enter upon the discharge of its duties.

IV.

Speech at the Dinner of the Republican Club of the City of New York, October 18, 1907.

Nearly twenty years ago I joined this club. It was the first political organization with which I became identified. Many of you have been my personal friends. It was in this building that I accepted the nomination for Governor and stated the issues which were regarded as paramount in the last campaign. It was

under your auspices that, after the election, on an occasion which for the warmth of its greeting and the cordiality of its good wishes will never be forgotten, I attempted to set forth the principles which should govern my administration. Related as I am to this club by such intimate and sentimental associations, it is especially gratifying to have this opportunity of meeting with you. And I may be pardoned if I speak in a somewhat personal vein.

I shall not attempt to recount in any detailed

or comprehensive manner what was accomplished at the last session of the Legislature. It was a long session, but one remarkable for the importance of the general legislation enacted, and it reflected great credit upon the Legislature.

One of the fundamental purposes of the administration is to vindicate the adequacy of our institutions, to put an end to abuses without tumult or disorder, without injustice or demagoguery, and in a patient, deliberate, but none the less vigorous manner to insist upon the recognition and enforcement of public rights by availing ourselves to the utmost of the existing machinery of government and by making such new provision as the interests of the people may require. A difficult problem of first importance was presented in connection with our public service corporations. It was our object to remove this from the field of reckless agitation and to provide, to the fullest extent consistent with constitutional requirements, methods of investigation and redress through which the public obligations of reasonable, impartial, and adequate service could be enforced, and public safety and convenience be conserved. Our Public Service Commissions Law provides the necessary machinery and powers,

to the use of which have been called men owing no allegiance to any special interest, unembarrassed by either financial or political obligation, who are devoting themselves with a single purpose to the protection of the rights of the people. Means have been provided to prevent the repetition of the wrongs which have been committed in the past, and through the use of the powers governing the issue of bonds and stocks, through insistence upon proper methods of bookkeeping, through the prescribed supervision of the transactions of these corporations, it is believed that necessary publicity will be secured, that the rights of investors will be safeguarded, and that the public will be protected from the reckless exploits of the unscrupulous who hitherto have had their way without effective restraint.

I believe most thoroughly in the efficient regulation of these public service corporations in the interest of the public. I believe that their transactions should be conducted in the light of day and under the public eye, that they should be compelled to furnish the service which they are bound by their charters to render, and that all their public obligations should rigorously be enforced.

I also believe in the reign of justice and in