According to a very suggestive analysis of leadership
made by a prominent sociologist, the "prime condition of
ascendency is the presence of undirected energy in the per-
son over whom it is to be exercised; it is not so much forced
upon us from without as demanded from within." ¹ Follow-
ing the witlidrawal of Conkling from politics and the Repub-
lican reverses of the eighties, there was present among the
Republican party workers in the state, both small and great,
a good deal of "undirected energy." There were bitter and
prolonged 'factional quarrels in various parts of the state.
While these quarrels consumed energy, they defeated the
main purpose of all good Republican workers, namely, Re-
publican victories at the polls. It is possible to describe
only a few of the more important political managers who
finally came to look. to Thomas C. Platt for guidance. Their
gravitation to Platt has been described by one of them in the
following words:

He came into leadership because, at a time when the party
was weak, when its voters were both listless and broken into
factions, when its organization was disrupted, and those
who might have led had given over their opportunity and had
withdrawn themselves into discouraged retirement, Mr.
Platt had the motive, the interest, the ambition, and the per-
sonal force to draw to himself, first in plans to guide the leg-

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