I want to add, as I think I can with entire truthfulness, that during all of this period I have never attempted to act the part of a political “boss.” I have avoided, rather than sought, authority or power to dictate nominations, or to control the action of conventions. No man can truthfully say that I have ever attempted to thwart a fair expression of Republican sentiment, or to force upon the party an unwelcome or an unworthy candidate, or to prevent the nomination of any man who was clearly the choice of the Republican voters. No man can truthfully say that I have ever provoked or encouraged factional feuds, or stirred up personal strife, in the party ranks. No man can truthfully say that I have ever refused to subordinate my personal interests, or my individual preferences or prejudices, in order to promote or secure Republican success. On the contrary, it has been my constant, earnest endeavor to harmonize, consolidate and strengthen the Republican party; to preserve peace in its ranks; and to make it a united, vigorous, and victorious party. To this end, and for these objects, I have often endured, without complaint, undeserved censure, and have preferred to be misunderstood and even misrepresented rather than to imperil Republican success by quarreling with those who misunderstood me. Time at last sets all things right, and I have always been content to await the just judgment of its final awards. And now, gentlemen of the convention, invoking upon your deliberations the blessings of harmony and the saving grace of Republican common sense, and appealing to you to remember that your opponents alone rejoice over and are benefited by personal and factional feuds in your ranks, I await your pleasure. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. Speech delivered at Washington, Kansas, October 24, 1884. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I must beg the charity alike of your silence and of your patient forbearance. I am not an orator. I make no pretensions as a public speaker. For while I have been talking to my fellow-citizens of Kansas for more than a quarter of a century, it has been through the medium of printed words, and not from the platform or on the stump. Only because I have been nominated by the Republican party of the State for an official position, and am thus, by the customs and usages of partisan politics, expected to attend and address such assemblages as this, do I appear before you. But I know the people of Kansas are as generous as they are intelligent, and hence, although fully conscious of my own deficiencies, I trust implicitly in their kindness, and shall endeavor as best I can to explain to you the reasons why I am a Republican, and why I think every good citizen should give his influence and his vote to secure the triumph to that party.