“Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention--I desire a hearing in order that I may state my reason for not desiring to enter the contest for temporary chairman of this convention. I believe that by forty years of service to my party I have earned the right to a hearing at the hands of a Democratic convention. I hail from the state of Indiana, which will shortly present to this convention for its consideration the name of one of the best, truest, and most gallant Democrats on earth, in the person of the Hon. Thomas R. Marshall, the governor of that state. “I desire to take no part in this convention that will in any wise militate against him or against his interests, which all true Indiana Democrats this day loyally support. I have been for many years a personal friend of the gentleman who has been named by the national committee. Many years ago, when Judge Parker and I were much younger than we are now, we met in a hotel in Europe and became warm personal friends. That was long before his elevation to the chief justiceship of the court of appeals of his state. Since that time I have enjoyed his friendship. He had had mine. I have accepted the hospitality of his home, and in 1904, when he was a candidate for the presidential nomination, moved largely by that personal friendship, I enlisted under his standard for the nomination long before the convention, and went through that great battle at St. Louis in his behalf. In that campaign, in response to a request of Judge Parker personally made to me, I, on account of my friendship for him, took the standard of a losing cause as candidate for governor of Indiana, and carried it on to defeat, but I hope not an inglorious defeat. In 1908 Judge Parker canvassed in my state for vice-president. Last year when I was a candidate for the national ticket, on which I was a candidate for the senate, in the midst of a heated contest, Judge Parker traveled from New York to Indianapolis to make a speech in my behalf. “We have been during all these years, and are now, personal friends. The greatest desire of my heart is the hope of a Democratic victory. I attended a national convention in Baltimore in 1872, before I had cast my vote, and my young heart was filled with no more enthusiasm for success that year than my old heart is now. I believe that Judge Parker is as earnestly in favor, as earnestly desirous of Democratic success this year as I am.