Addresses: by John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas.

by John Alexander Martin

Now, my friends, I shall not detain you longer. In telling you why I am a Republican, I have stated the reasons why, in my judgment, every man who loves his country, every citizen who values good government, every citizen who appreciates the blessings of liberty regulated by law, should be a Republican. And a Republican, my friends, is a man who votes the Republican ticket. This little fact ought to be understood. The man who says he is a Republican, and in the same breath declares that he is going to vote the Democratic ticket, or for Democratic candidates, is—well, he need not be surprised if everybody mistakes him for a Democrat. As the old colored woman said: “It’s ’stonishin’ how dem pickanninies look like one anoder—’speshully Pomp!” If you are a Republican, stand by your party and its candidates. “Kicking” is the characteristic of a mule, but I never heard that it added either to the value of the animal or to the esteem in which he is held. The horse that has a habit of “bolting” when the race is on, may be a good-enough horse, but he never wins either confidence, cheers, or purses. The brood of “kickers” and “bolters” is not one that should be emulated. Stand up for your party, wholly, completely, or not at all. Keep in its ranks, or go over to the enemy. A beautiful spectacle—a spectacle for gods and men—is the Republican who says he is going to march through this campaign that is just opening, shouting for Blaine and Logan, but will march with a crowd that regards no slander too vile, no abuse too low, no denunciation too vulgar or too bitter to apply to Blaine and Logan! Just think of a Democratic procession with these “kickers” in its ranks—before them an old-fashioned Democratic banner, inscribed: “Do you want your daughter to marry a nigger?” And behind them other banners, bearing such inscriptions as: “Jim Blaine, the Tattooed Man—Read the Mulligan Letters;” or, “Jack Logan Enlisting Men for the Rebel Army;” or, “The Republican Party Must Go that Free Whisky May Come!” Don’t you think it would stir the heart and warm the blood of a true Republican to march with such a crowd? Could any genuine Republican do it?

With such a record as it can point to, the Republican party has a right to expect the continued devotion of the best minds and hearts of the country. It has a right to more than this. It has a right to expect of its members and friends that unity, concord and tolerance so essential to its success. It has a right to demand of its members that they shall not indulge in useless quarrels over differences which only the lapse of time can finally adjust and reconcile. Every soldier who followed the old flag will, I think, call to mind occasions when he firmly believed that the war was not conducted as it should be, and when the gravest differences of opinion concerning the methods and policy of his commanders were widely prevalent. But if he was a true soldier, he remembers also, and with justifiable pride, that while he occasionally indulged a soldier’s privilege, and did a little wholesome private growling, he never for an instant forgot his duty to his country, and abated no jot of his enthusiastic devotion to her cause. During the war there was only one Fitz John Porter. The Republican who thinks Porter was justly punished, should not, in politics, emulate his example. The true soldier was for his country, no matter how his commanders conducted the war; the true Republican, animated by the same spirit, aims his guns at the common enemy, and never at the soldiers of the Republican ranks.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1884.

Speech delivered at Manhattan, Kansas, November 21st, 1884.

My Friends and Fellow-Citizens of Manhattan: I came to your jubilee, as some of you know, with grave reluctance. This was not because I failed to appreciate your generous kindness in desiring to celebrate my election. It was not because I was not sincerely thankful to you for your earnest support in the canvass just closed. It was not because I was not deeply and profoundly sensible of the great honor done me by the people of this intelligent and prosperous State. Nor was it because I would not willingly and gladly meet with the people of this enterprising, beautiful and growing city—the seat of one of the most important of our great institutions of learning—on the occasion of any social or political celebration to which their partiality and kindness might summon me.

But when I first received your invitation, the result of the great quadrennial struggle between the opposing and enduring forces of Loyalty, Liberty and Progress was not yet determined. And it seemed to me that no gratulation personal to myself, no celebration of a victory that embraced only the narrow confines of a State, was allowable while the tremendous issues of the National contest were involved in doubt.

I come now, in response to your summons, with a heavy heart. The Republican victory in Kansas was, I know, complete. The largest vote ever polled in the State shows the largest Republican majority, and the vote cast for me exceeds the wildest anticipations of my most sanguine friends. To receive nearly double the votes cast for the Republican nominee two years ago; to turn a minority of nearly ten thousand into a majority of nearly forty thousand; to be indorsed by a majority of the votes cast in all but about half a dozen counties of the State; to receive over twenty-five thousand more votes than were cast for the Republican candidate for President four years ago; and notwithstanding the fact that the whole force of the enemy’s attack was massed against me, to fall only a little more than six thousand votes behind the poll for James G. Blaine, who for ten years past has been the idol of the people of Kansas—this is indeed a victory, a triumph, of which any man would have a just right to feel proud.

And I certainly am proud of it, and as grateful as I am proud. I am grateful to the generous Republicans of the State, who, after nominating me with unprecedented unanimity, supported me with unparalleled earnestness and enthusiasm. I am grateful to the eloquent and vigorous speakers, who, in city, town, village and school-house, pleaded my cause with the people, defended me against unjust assault, and did far more than justice to my services or my deserving. I am grateful, especially, to the thousands of earnest, enthusiastic young men whose torches, for weeks, turned night into day from Doniphan to Barber, and from Cherokee to Cheyenne, and who, with flashing flambeaux, blazing rockets and loud hurrahs, often did what neither the logic, the eloquence nor the wit of orators could do, to arouse the sluggish and convert the doubtful. I am grateful to the bright, enterprising, enthusiastic journalists of Kansas—and no State in the Union can boast of brighter or better newspapers than can Kansas—who so ardently and intelligently supported me. I am grateful to hundreds of Democrats and Greenbackers in the State, who, believing that I stood for obedience to law, voted for me. I am grateful even to the opposition, who, as a general rule, treated me courteously and fairly. The exceptions to this rule only emphasized it.

There is in me, therefore, no lack of gratitude for the signal honor conferred upon me by the people of Kansas. Indeed, the measure of my gratitude is so full and overflowing that it weighs upon me. I feel under obligations to so many people, I am profoundly grateful to so many, that when I think of it all, and of how I am to testify my gratitude or requite the obligations I am under, I am overwhelmed with a sense of the poverty of my vocabulary of thankfulness, and of the vain aspiration of my desire to return even a tithe of my multitudinous obligations.

But, grateful as I am to the Republicans of Kansas for the signal honor they have conferred upon me—an honor which fills the full measure of my ambition—and proud as I am of the magnificent victory won in Kansas, I cannot forget that the Republican banner of the Nation is, for the first time in twenty-five years, trailing in defeat. If I loved the party merely for its gifts of honor and of office; if I cared nothing for its principles, and had no faith in their power to benefit and bless the people of America; if I regarded the contest between the Democratic and the Republican parties as a mere scramble for the spoils of office, I would be content with my own personal victory, and accept it as all that I was interested in. But I am a Republican, not only in name, but in fact. I am a Republican because I sincerely believe that the Republican party is the purest, the most intelligent, the most progressive, the most beneficent organization the world has ever known. I am a Republican because the Republican party saved the Union; because it abolished slavery; because it enfranchised the slaves; because it has made this Nation great, free, prosperous, and self-sustaining.