That those who wish to become office-holders should be anxious to be on the winning side is also natural, and that, too, without regard to the locality or section in which they live.

It is a fact, therefore, that up to 1908 no candidate has ever been nominated by a Republican National Convention who did not finally receive a sufficient number of votes from all sections of the country to make his nomination practically the choice of the party without regard to sectional lines.
If, then, it be a fact that in 1908, for instance, delegates to the National Republican Convention were elected and controlled through administration influences in the interest of any one candidate, such influences were no less potential in Republican than in Democratic States.

Outside of the administration candidate there were at that Convention five very important States that presented candidates of their own.

They were New York, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
That the delegation from each of said States were practically solid in the support of its "favorite son" was due largely to the wise decision of the managers of the administration candidate to concede to each of said "favorite sons" the delegation from his own State without a contest.

But for this decision, which was wisely made in the interest of party harmony, no one of those "favorite sons" would have had the solid delegation from his own State.