GOVERNOR AND VICE.PRESIDENT 
59 
We must deal briefly with the story of his administration. He 
was hardly seated in the Capitol at Albany when he had a consultation 
with a body of labor leaders, for whom he had sent. Labor laws were 
not wanting on the statute books, designed to benefit the laborer; but 
half of these were dead letters, and some of them had always been 
valueless. 
“These laws are your special concern/’ said the Governor to his 
visitors. “I want you to look over them with me and see if they are 
fair, and, if they are, that they be fairly enforced. We will have no 
dead-letter laws. If there is anything wrong you know of, I want you 
to tell me of it. If we need more legislation we will go to the legisla¬ 
ture and ask for it. If we have enough, we will see to it that the laws 
we have are carried out and the most made of them.” 
And this was done, so far as he was able to do it. There arose a 
question about the factory law, which it was claimed was not properly 
enforced. The sweatshops were a disease hard to cure. To satisfy 
himself as to the actual conditions the Governor came down from 
Albany and went through a group of the worst type of tenement houses 
himself. He saw much to disapprove of. 
“There is improvement,” he said to the factory inspector, “but not 
enough. I do not think you quite understand what I mean by enforcing 
a law. I don’t want to make it as easy as possible for the manufacturer. 
Make the owners of tenements understand that old, badly built, 
uncleanly houses shall not be used for manufacturing in any shape. 
Put the bad tenement at a disadvantage as against the well-constructed 
and well-kept house, and make the house owner as well as the manu¬ 
facturer understand it.” 
The result of this personal inspection was the Tenement House 
Improvement Bill, the need of which he made the legislators see, and 
the effect of which was all on the side of sanitation and fair play. Its 
effect was to check the doings of the slum landlord. 
Democratic orators had predicted that Governor Roosevelt would 
be “too impetuous.” He was impetuous by nature, he acknowledged 
that, but he thought he had schooled himself in this particular. Yet 
on the final day of the legislative session of 1899 his impetuous spirit 
blazed out, though in a way that few found amiss. He declared 
