And finally, you can guarantee this, that you can search from the top to the bottom of my record in the past and of my record in the future and you will never find that I have done or am doing or ever shall do for Mr. Perkins or for any other human being [applause]—wait a minute—or for any other human being one thing that I wouldn’t tell to this audience in its entire details. [A voice: “We believe it.” Applause.]
[Voices: “Put him out.”] Not a bit. I am glad to have him stay in. Don’t put him out. [Applause.]
HISSES ON THE BOSSES.
And now I have given you the names of my supporters. Here are the names of a dozen representative supporters of Mr. Taft: Senator Lorimer [hisses], Senator Penrose [hisses], Senator Gallinger [hisses], Senator Guggenheim [hisses], Senator Aldrich [hisses], Senator Stephenson [hisses], Mr. Kealing of Indiana [hisses], Mr. Barnes of New York [hisses], Mr. Cox of Ohio [hisses], Mr. Cannon [hisses], Mr. Ballinger [hisses], and finally, to balance Frank Heney in California, Mr. Patrick Calhoun [hisses], whom Frank Heney tried to put into the penitentiary.
Now, friends, Mr. Taft has said that I have accepted the support of bosses. So I have, when they went my way; but I never went their way. [Applause.] Either they had to go my way or we parted company. [Applause.]
Understand me, friends, and make no thought of Mr. Taft. I think he means well, but he means feebly, and he is surrounded by men who are neither well meaning nor feeble. [Applause.]
And now, friends, that is all I have got to say of the personalities in this contest. I have not been interested in them in any shape or way. I have no personal feeling whatever in the matter. I will support any man as long as that man renders service to the people of the United States. [Great applause and cheers.] And when he ceases rendering service I shall cease to support him. [Great applause.]
APPEAL TO THE PATRIOTS.
And now, friends, to you men and women of Massachusetts, I wish to make as strong an appeal as I know how. I come from another State. I have no New England blood in me, but nine-tenths of the men in our nation’s past to whom I have looked up most have been men of New England blood. [Cries of “Hear! Hear!” and applause.] And I ask Massachusetts now to stand as Massachusetts has ever stood, to stand in the van of the forward movement and not to be dragged reluctantly onward behind the other States that go forward. [Applause.]