II

“John W. Kern in his speech at the German meeting on Monday night condemned in unmeasured terms the man or party that sympathized with Louis Napoleon. His sympathies were with the Prussians all the time. On that question John is right, but many of his party are against him.”

That the youth with all his enthusiasm possessed an abundance of practical political judgment may be assumed from the fact that he took cognizance of the overwhelming Republican majority in refusing to make his fight along strictly party lines, refrained from mentioning the parties by name, and devoted himself exclusively to the reform issue. This policy from which he refused to be diverted by the gray beards of the Republican party soon got on the nerves of the Republican organ, which was moved to say:

“John W. Kern is not a party man now. Oh, no! But he was nominated by a convention called by the chairman of the Democratic county committee. He will vote for Henderson for congress, and if sent to the legislature for Voorhees for senator. But he ignores party! Such thin sophistry will make a fool of no one.”

And again we find the same fearsome note struck:

“Kern doesn’t want the voters of the county to allow Wildman, Jay, or Phillips to dictate how they shall vote, but he wants to do the dictating. John has put himself in the belly of the Trojan horse. As soon as he shall get himself inside the walls of the city he will turn himself loose.”

Meanwhile the editor ofThe Tribuneand Kirkpatrick seemed to feel in need of all possible help and the Republican organ contained numerous attacks on the boy candidate under the caption “Communicated.” In one of these the writer described Kern as “a young lawyer with a reputation for two things—making smart speeches and smoking cigars”—a reputation he lived up to throughout his life.

He closed the campaign at Alto to an audience of his boyhood friends, and ifThe Tribuneis to be credited followed this later in the night on the streets of Kokomo with “a bitter partisan speech.”

The election resulted in his defeat by so small a margin thatThe Tribuneeditorially confessed its chagrin. It is to be presumed that he carried out his wager with Tony Jay, a Kokomo packer, and blacked that worthy’s boots on the street in front of the Clinton House—the leading hostelry of the town.

The campaign had firmly established his reputation as a very young man with a very old and level head, possessed of eloquence, tact, political judgment, and all the elements of leadership. And this before he was of age! Living as he was to do throughout his life in Republican communities he was not to attain the goal of his ambition until late in life, but had he lived in England and been thus equipped he would probably have entered parliament like Fox and Pitt as a mere boy and gone far.

In the year 1870 the political services of the boy leader were not confined to preparing resolutions and making stirring speeches. He was the most potent factor in the establishment of a Democratic newspaper in Kokomo. The story of the origin ofThe Radical Democrat, which was to change its name later toThe Kokomo Despatchand as such to take high rank among the party papers of the state, is intimately interwoven with the political history of Kern. In the spring of that year W. J. Turpin, anxious to establish a Democratic paper and in search of a location, was advised to turn his attention to Kokomo, and “for further information to write J. W. Kern.” He did write to the boy leader and the encouragement from Kern impelled him to make a personal investigation, and he went to Kokomo. A youth of precisely Kern’s age, twenty, and without a penny of capital, his project could have held forth little promise of a successful issue to one withless than Kern’s bubbling buoyancy and audacity. He has told the story of his conference with young Kern in some reminiscences published in later years.

“Mr. Kern was not yet one and twenty. He was literally slopping over with soul and life. Recent college triumphs had inspired him with a hope and confidence for the future. I recognized in him at once the uncaged Nubian lion of the community. Upon one point we were agreed—the capital was of but secondary and slight importance to the furtherance of our object. We closed, and from that moment began a fervent and unabating friendship.”

On the following day Kern accompanied Turpin on a canvass of the town for subscriptions, heading the list himself, and during the day procuring more than a hundred subscriptions. The Democrats were willing to take a risk and the Republicans could see no possible danger in the competition. The embryo editor thereupon plunged into the country townships with the view to increasing his circulation list, leaving with Kern the task of collecting enough real money to make a payment on an office. At length arrangements were made whereby each issue could be put out at a cost of $25, and a Democrat was persuaded to furnish office rent free. Such was the beginning ofThe Kokomo Despatch.

This, however, did not end Kern’s connection with the paper, for he appears by Turpin’s admission tohave been a copious contributor to the editorial columns, and throughout the remainder of his residence in Kokomo he was charged at various times with plying his pen in the interest of the party and the paper. When the editor sold the paper in the late summer of the year of its birth to Doctor Henderson he acknowledged his indebtedness to Kern’s pen in the following tribute:

“John W. Kern has contributed much to the success of this enterprise. To him I shall ever feel under obligations, and I am also proud that the party in this county numbers among its young men one of so much earnestness and purity of purpose who promises to be truly a Defender of the Faith.”

Thus in his twentieth year he had established the reputation of being the most effective Democratic orator in the county, had made the most spectacular and brilliant campaign made by a Democrat in Howard in many years, given the Republicans their first real scare in a generation, won recognition as a leader of tact and judgment, and made possible the publication of a Democratic party organ in that wilderness of radical Republicanism.

In the spring of 1871 Kern’s growing popularity was attested by his election by the city council, composed of five Republicans and three Democrats, ascity attorney—a position to which he was to be repeatedly re-elected by successive councils and without regard to the political complexion of that body. Although a strong partisan his winning personality exerted an influence beyond the party wall, and that generosity and geniality toward his political opponents which was to lead Senator Beveridge years later to pronounce him “the Bayard of the Hoosier Democracy” was even then pronounced.

In the Democratic county convention of that year he appears to have been a dominating factor. It was the year when thousands of old-fashioned Democrats found in party regularity a bitter hardship because of the nomination of Horace Greeley for the presidency. Even Voorhees in a speech acquiescing in the nomination acknowledged the bitterness of the pill. This lead to the appearance of a new Kokomo newspaper calledThe Liberal, with Kern’s name at the head of the editorial columns, and described byThe Kokomo Tribuneas “a lively little paper full of Democracy, Greeleyism, Hendrickism and what-you-call-it.” It does not appear from the newspapers of that year that he participated very actively in the speaking campaign, but he was evidently in the midst of things from the occasional references of the Republican paper to his activities. Thus in describing a Democratic rallyThe Tribunepictures him on horseback “riding along the procession urging cheersfor Hendricks,” the nominee for governor; and at another Democratic meeting he is described as vehemently urging the unresponsive crowd to give “three cheers for Greeley” and to “go up-stairs and hear C. N. Pollard.”

By 1874 we find his position as the Democratic leader in Howard assured and as the sole representative of the county he was attending caucuses of the State Committee at Indianapolis. In the county convention of that year he was the general in command. The papers reported that out of the thirty-two motions made all were made by Kern but three. It had by this time come to be the custom to top off all county conventions in Howard with a ringing party exhortation from the boy leader, and in ’74 he was still harping on the necessity for “reform,” though now with special reference to the conditions in the court house. “Kern was then called for and spoke on the subject of reform,” wrote the editor ofThe Tribune, “If he had lived in the days of the Reformation he would have been the head and front of that movement. As a reformer Kern is a success.” It was in this campaign that he pounded the Republican machine of Kokomo with such vigor as to cause evident distress. The county officials had been obsessed with a mania for supplying their offices not only with the necessities but with all the luxuries obtainable. He brought all his withering power ofridicule to bear upon arm rests, paper weights, dusters, fancy stationery and numerous other articles deemed non-essential by the average Howard county farmer of that day, but his greatest scorn was reserved for the “McGill machine.” This was a new invention for clamping papers together, and it was Kern’s policy in addressing an audience in the country to dwell at great length and in awesome fashion upon the “McGill machine” until his farmer audience had conjured up a picture of something resembling in general outline a threshing machine, and then to spring the tiny machine upon them with the rather fancy price paid for it by the commissioners. He succeeded in making the “McGill machine” an issue in the campaign, the bone of hot contention, and every one who was not indignant over the purchase was laughing about it.

The “paramount issue” in the campaign of 1876 was reform. It swept the country like a tidal wave. It made logical and inevitable the nomination of Samuel J. Tilden, the great reform governor of New York for the presidency by the Democrats. It played havoc with the ambitions of several worthy men in Indiana who had been guilty of petty extravagances in office but whose personal probity was no protection against the hysteria of the hour which pilloriedthem as unworthy of public favor and erased their names from the party tickets. It was the year that the Republicans thought they were disgracing Godlove S. Orth, as honorable a man as ever lived, by removing him from the head of their ticket when they were only shaming themselves; and the Democrats assumed that they were advertising their virtue by driving from their judicial ticket such honorable men and able jurists as Judges Buskirk, Downey and Pettit, when they were only exposing their weakness. There was, in those days, ample justification for the cry of reform, and we have seen that before he had attained his majority Mr. Kern had been strongly impressed with the necessity of it, but, like many good movements, it went to extremes, and we shall see that the young Kokomo leader shared in this weakness with many others.

We first find him active in ’76 in the county convention of Howard, where he was the dominating figure, and delivered what appears to have been a long and forceful speech on his favorite topic of reform.The Tribunemerely quoted one sentence from this speech to the effect that “the Democracy disowns Ben Hill,” with the comment that both Hill and Kern would be at the St. Louis convention, “Hill as a big whale and Kern as a tadpole.” The spicy editor was also grateful for the length of the speech, which “gave the reporters plenty of time to do realwork on really important matters;” and another comment on the convention was to the effect that “the following persons took prominent part in the convention: John W. Kern, K. W. Yern, K. J. Wern, J. Kern Worth, etc.” The same year Kern was recognized by the state Democracy by his selection for the secretaryship of the state convention at Indianapolis. It was a convention characterized by great enthusiasm. Party leaders addressed the throngs from the balconies of hotels, andThe Indianapolis Journal, in describing this manifestation of earnestness and enthusiasm, said that the party leaders spoke everywhere “from Voorhees, who spoke from the balcony of the Grand all the way down to one Kern of Kokomo, who was found haranguing a group of hack drivers from a soap box on Indiana avenue.” No better evidence of the partisan bitterness of that historic year could be asked than the fact thatThe Kokomo Tribunedescribed the proceedings under the headline—“Hoodlums.”

It was a little after the state convention that the young leader from Howard attracted state-wide attention by the ferocity of his attack upon Judge Worden of the supreme court in the district convention at Muncie. Few abler men have ever sat upon the bench, and none of greater personal or official probity, but the members of the supreme court had been guilty of the unpardonable extravagance of havingpurchased stationery and some of the conveniences for their offices and one by one as they appeared for renomination they were retired until Worden made his successful fight in the Fort Wayne district. Many years afterward, a year before his nomination for the vice-presidency, and in an address before the Bar Association on “Great Indiana Lawyers,” Mr. Kern referred to the incident as an extravaganza of his youth. His own description is the best one for the purpose here:

“The spirit of reform was strong upon me then. That was in ’76. I attended the convention of my district, which was held in Muncie. The county of Howard was then in the Fort Wayne district. I went over there determined to do what I could to purge the Democratic ticket of those unregenerate men who had brought disgrace upon the fair name of the party of Jefferson and Jackson. We went there, and the question as to whether or not Judge Worden should be removed was presented on a motion to adjourn. Allen county (the home of Worden) was there in force. About 200 shouters were there. They knew more about politics than I did at that early day, and the discussion was heated. I waited until Judge Worden’s champions had let loose their thunder, and then I proceeded to let mine loose. It did not occur to me that Judge Worden might be there, but I made a vindictive speech, because, as I say, the spirit of reform was strong upon me. I denouncedthe extravagance and profligacy of those men who had betrayed their trust in the bitterest and most vindictive terms. I had exhausted my vocabulary in my effort to villify those men who I thought had brought disgrace upon the party. And when I sat down a gentleman who was seated a little way in my rear tapped me on the shoulder. I looked around, and Judge Worden said to me, ‘Young man, I think I must form your acquaintance.’ “He did not change my vote, however, but when the vote was taken, it was so overwhelmingly in favor of Judge Worden that I finally compromised by moving to make it unanimous. Afterward I came to know Judge Worden better, and he was really a great lawyer.”

Attached though he was to “reform,” it appears that he was not enamored of the candidacy of Tilden, and before the St. Louis convention, in the ardor of his opposition, which probably was born of his devotion to Hendricks rather than to any real objections to the New York governor, he made the statement that he would not vote for Tilden if nominated. The seriousness of the threat was evident in the comment ofThe Kokomo Tribuneimmediately after the convention:

“John W. Kern declared upon his honor before the St. Louis convention that he would not vote for Tilden if nominated. Now he authorizes us to say that he is a liar and will vote for him. Of course.”

As a matter of fact he was more active than ever upon the stump, not only in his own section of the state, but in distant parts, and the effectiveness of his speeches in Howard may be judged from the unrestrained fury with whichThe Tribuneassailed him in a personal way. It is doubtful if more bitter personal attacks have ever been made upon any politician anywhere or at any time, but it does not appear that Kern took any notice of them. The fact that the opposition paper referred to him in this campaign as “the Democratic party of Howard county” may throw some light upon the motives for the attack. Where it had previously softened its political asperities with scarcely veiled personal admiration, it now spoke of him habitually as “this fellow Kern.”

Two years later, in 1878, so vicious had some of the Republican leaders become against him that the scurrilous story was circulated that at a Democratic meeting in Anderson he had “thanked God for the death of Oliver P. Morton.” This was too brutal in its falsity forThe Kokomo Tribune, which made an investigation and denial with the statement that “Kern is about as mean a Democrat as anybody ... but this article is intended to give the devil his due.” It appears that in 1880 he was not a member of any committee or a delegate to any convention, but later in the campaign he was drafted to run for prosecuting attorney, and again he ran several hundred ahead of his ticket without winning.

In the county convention of 1882 we find him reviewing the issues as he had done regularly for twelve years. His speech this year smacked strongly of the position he so prominently took in later years regarding corruption in elections. Reporting the speechThe Kokomo Despatchsaid:

“He bore down heavily on the use of money at the polls and predicted that the time would come when every candidate who uses money to buy his nomination or election will be repudiated and spewed out by the people.”

This practically ends his political career as a citizen of Kokomo, for the next campaign was to find him a candidate on the state ticket, and upon his election he changed his residence to Indianapolis. From that time, however, until his death, thirty-three years later, the Democracy of Howard county claimed him as its own, and in campaign after campaign he was called upon until the last one in which he ever participated to discuss the issues in Kokomo.

Many stories are still told to illustrate the impression made by the Kern of this period upon the voters of Howard county. One of these relates to the supreme confidence of a Quaker idolater of his living in the Quaker stronghold of New London, whereDemocrats were a novelty. One cold election morning this venerable Democrat hobbled laboriously to the polls to be confronted by an old character of the village by the name of Uncle Jimmy Arnett, who was noted for the uncompromising bitterness of his Republicanism with the question:

“How art thou this morning?”“My rheumatics is very bad. I could hardly get here.”“Thou must be very old. How does’st thou intend to vote?”“I am past eighty, but have always voted the Democratic ticket since I first voted for Andy Jackson.”“Thou art old and hath but a brief time on earth and should make thy calling and election sure. Thou had’st better vote the Republican ticket.”“I don’t know that the way a man votes has much to do with his future spiritually,” was the indignant reply.“But does’st thou not know that the Good Book says that ‘no Democrat can enter the kingdom of heaven?’”“Well, it seems to me that the Bible does say something like that.”“Well, thou had’st but a short time and if the Good Book is true thou takest an awful risk. Thou had’st better vote the Republican ticket.”“No, I will not. In fact, if John Kern was here he could explain all that away.”

“How art thou this morning?”

“My rheumatics is very bad. I could hardly get here.”

“Thou must be very old. How does’st thou intend to vote?”

“I am past eighty, but have always voted the Democratic ticket since I first voted for Andy Jackson.”

“Thou art old and hath but a brief time on earth and should make thy calling and election sure. Thou had’st better vote the Republican ticket.”

“I don’t know that the way a man votes has much to do with his future spiritually,” was the indignant reply.

“But does’st thou not know that the Good Book says that ‘no Democrat can enter the kingdom of heaven?’”

“Well, it seems to me that the Bible does say something like that.”

“Well, thou had’st but a short time and if the Good Book is true thou takest an awful risk. Thou had’st better vote the Republican ticket.”

“No, I will not. In fact, if John Kern was here he could explain all that away.”

Stories of this general nature taken from his Kokomo days might be multiplied, for Kern stories have been plentiful in Howard for half a century. His popularity never waned.

AT the age of thirty-seven Kern took a survey of his life and an inventory of his resources and found himself dissatisfied with the result. He had a local reputation as a young man of unusual promise and ability as a lawyer, was extraordinarily popular among his Howard county neighbors, and was known as a forceful and eloquent speaker among the Democratic leaders of the state. But his worldly stores were not in keeping with his ability, and he faced the fact that he had not properly realized on his capacity. Thus it was that in 1884 he decided to be a candidate for a state office. Actuated partly by the fact that it was in the line of his profession and partly because it was at that time a highly remunerative office he concluded to be a candidate for the nomination for reporter of the supreme court. Already well and favorably known in his section of the state and among the politicians from every section his availability was impressed upon the democracy of every community through the publication in local papers of editorials “made in Kokomo” in the office ofThe Kokomo Despatch. This publicity factory was under the management of his friend, OscarHenderson, afterward auditor of state. And it did effective work.

It is probable that no Democratic convention in the history of Indiana has ever been so distinguished in the personnel of its participants as was that which convened in English’s Opera House in Indianapolis in the closing days of June, 1884. Although a Democratic president had not crossed the threshold of the White House since Buchanan, the party in Indiana had never lost its courage or its militancy, and it had never been so spirited as during the summer of the year of its first national triumph in almost a quarter of a century. The national convention had not yet been held and while the reform governor of New York was being vigorously pushed for the presidential nomination it was by no means certain that he would be nominated. At any rate it did not enter into the plans of the Indiana democracy, which determined to press the claims of one of her own most distinguished statesmen, Joseph E. McDonald, formerly a member of the United States senate. While not so sagacious a politician and party leader as Hendricks nor such a brilliant, dashing, picturesque figure on the firing line as Voorhees, he was, in many respects, the intellectual superior of both. He had something of the dignity, solidity and majesty with which popular imagination clothes the Roman senator of antiquity.

Thus when Senator McDonald appeared upon the platform of the English Opera House that June morning in 1884 to call the convention to order he was hailed as the prospective standard bearer of the democracy in the national campaign. He presented to the convention, as its chairman, Senator Daniel W. Voorhees, whose hold upon the affections of the rank and file had constantly strengthened during his twenty-six years of public life, and whose genius and eloquence in the presentation of political issues has never been equaled in the state. After stirring the delegates to a high pitch of enthusiasm in his “keynote” speech, he introduced the chairman of the committee on Resolutions, William H. English, who only four years before had been the party’s nominee for the vice-presidency on the ticket with Hancock.

The only contests in the convention were over the nominations for governor and reporter of the supreme court, and the gubernatorial contest was between two of the greatest figures that ever led the democracy of the Hoosier state, Isaac P. Gray, afterward Indiana’s choice for the presidency, who died while ambassador to Mexico, and David Turpie, who had already served in the United States senate and was to return to that body a little later. While Turpie was much the abler man, a statesman of high order, he was not the equal of the astuteGray as a politician, and the latter was easily nominated on the first ballot.

McDonald, Voorhees, English, Gray and Turpie—all prominent participants in one state convention, the only absent leader of the first magnitude was Hendricks, who was to be nominated for the vice-presidency with Cleveland in less than a month. It was in such a convention that John W. Kern made his initial bow to the state democracy.

Seldom has any party put forth a stronger ticket than that on which Kern was nominated. Gray, one of the best campaigners in the state, was nominated for governor; Captain W. R. Myers, nominated for secretary of state, continued for a quarter of a century one of the most powerful figures on the stump; John J. Cooper, nominated for treasurer, was a business man of high character whose name is still conjured with; Francis T. Hord, the nominee for attorney-general, was one of the strong lawyers of the state; and James H. Rice, popularly known to this day, though dead for many years, as “Jim” Rice, was one of the cleverest politicians and most delightful personalities that ever moved across the political stage.

And this convention, notable in every way, was able to dispose of its business and adjourn in three hours and a half, having met at 10 A. M. and adjourned at 1:30 P. M.

The campaign of 1884, in which Kern first appeared on the platform as a party leader, and the two following contests during which he was in office, were among the most exciting and picturesque in the history of state politics. It was the day of immense meetings, of torchlight processions when party papers quarreled over the number of torches carried in parades, and over the number of men who rode on horseback—a day of joint debates, and bitter assaults. And it was the day of real giants. Hendricks in ’84 was to make his last appearance. Voorhees was sweeping over the state leaving behind a frenzy of enthusiasm, McDonald was speaking the more sober language of statesmanship to great assemblies, Turpie was discoursing textbooks on political science from which less erudite politicians were to learn their lessons. Gray was meeting Calkins in joint debates from which the amateur debaters of the country stores, the blacksmith shops and the street corners were to get their cue; John E. Lamb, just out of his twenties and known from river to lake as “the blue-eyed boy of destiny,” was setting the woods on fire by driving his opponents in congressional races from the stump; Benjamin F. Shively, still in his twenties, was duplicating the trick in the South Bend district; and a young and exceedingly popular politician wasjust beginning to attract attention as a party manager in Marion county—Tom Taggart.

From the beginning of the campaign Kern was one of the most active and effective figures on the stump, as is disclosed by a consultation of the files ofThe Indianapolis Sentinel. This indicates that he confined his speeches largely to the tariff question and spoke usually for two hours. In the campaign of ’84 we find him speaking to “a large and enthusiastic audience for two hours” at Bourbon; addressing “5,000 people on Michigan street,” in Michigan City, where his speech was “invariably considered to have been the ablest delivered in the present campaign.” Here, too, he was given “a grand ovation” and reviewed “the largest procession of the campaign with over 1,000 torches in line.” At Dekalb he spoke to “a bigger meeting than Voorhees had in the county” and was given “one of the grand ovations of the season.” The correspondent at Dekalb in his enthusiasm wrote: “Too much praise can not be given Mr. Kern for the eloquent, logical and convincing manner in which he handles the subjects at issue. He is making one of our best political orators, and in time will have more than a state reputation.”The Sentinel’scorrespondent at Hagerstown assures us that “his speech was the most effective delivered here during the campaign,” that he “discussed the tariff in a masterly manner,” and that “his socialmanner won for him a host of friends irrespective of party.”

It is evident that he made a fine impression in the campaign of 1884 from the nature of the assignments that were given him in the next campaign. He had evidently become a favorite on the stump. The columns ofThe Indianapolis Sentinelfor this campaign indicate that after the great leaders of the time, Voorhees, Gray, Turpie and McDonald, he was a favorite with partisan audiences. Thus in the report of his speech at Logansport this year he is referred to as “John the Eloquent;” the report from his Greenfield meeting referred to him as “one of Indiana’s finest orators” and to the “easy and graceful way he showed up General Harrison;” the Rushville correspondent wrote that “the name of John W. Kern was sufficient to insure a full house” and “the impression left behind is highly complimentary to Mr. Kern.” Something of the militant nature of his partisanship during this period may be gathered from an incident connected with his meeting at Connersville. Finding that he was dated to speak the same night that Colonel Charles L. Holstein was to discuss the issues from the Republican point of view, he immediately challenged the colonel to meet him on the same platform in a joint discussion—an invitation that was not considered attractive. Kern then spoke at his own meeting and the report has it that “his fiery reviewof the Republican protective tariff robbery aroused great enthusiasm.” But the most laudatory account of any of his meetings in this campaign was sent out, naturally enough, from Kokomo, in which he was described as “the most eloquent orator of his years in Indiana.” It then went on to describe his speech—“The young man eloquent was in splendid form and his speech was admitted on all sides to have been the ablest effort on either side during the present campaign.... For one and a half hours he poured hot shot into the rotten hull of the enemies’ craft. Old Democrats declare they have never heard a more electrical speech in their lives. Put the Howard county democracy down solid for Kern for governor bye and bye.”

If any further evidence were necessary to establish the fact that during the time he was reporter of the supreme court he was looked upon in many quarters as the future leader of the party, two cards that appeared inThe Indianapolis Sentinelat the time would surely suffice. These cards are important to our purpose in establishing Kern’s status between 1885 and 1889. An “Indianapolis attorney” wrote:

“If the Democrats intend to push young men to the front for the governorship and party leadership, what is the matter with John W. Kern, reporter of the supreme court? He is the man whom the late Vice-President Hendricks once referred to as ‘oneof the rising Democratic leaders of Indiana.’ At the last election he received a larger popular vote than any man on the state ticket except Judge Mitchell, who had the additional support of the Greenbackers, and he even got a larger majority than the latter. Then there is no man in the state who comes nearer being the political idol of the young democracy, and I know of hundreds of young Republicans who would support him for any position to which he might aspire. No one can say that John Kern can’t make a speech; there is not a public talker in the state who can arouse the ‘boys’ in a speech more completely than he; and then he has brains enough to fill any position; is shrewd enough for a manager, and no one has more personal friends.”

The following day another card appeared from “An Old-Style Democrat.”

“Your talk from an Indianapolis attorney made me a little zealous. While it is true that ‘John W. Kern is the idol of the young democracy of the state,’ he is no less a favorite of us old Democrats. He is young, able and progressive, just such a man as we need. John W. Kern is a born leader. To be sure he is young, but he has got a mighty old head on him, and it will be seen that he don’t need much pushing to get to the front.”

I am indebted to Dr. E. E. Quivey of Fort Wayne for some interesting recollections of the Kern of the eighties. In the campaign of 1884 he was a memberof a Democratic quartette which was sent over the state with various orators, and for three weeks the quartette accompanied Kern. Any one knowing him in the latter years of his life will find in these reminiscences a striking likeness to the man they knew. His charm of manner, courtesy, thoughtfulness, simplicity and democracy of bearing are prominently featured in Doctor Quivey’s recollections:

“At this time Mr. Kern was a comparatively young man and not widely known in Indiana outside the confines of his own district. He was very slender and in the long frock coat of the period seemed much taller than when I saw him years afterward. He had an abundance of hair which was almost black and which he wore rather long, but always neatly trimmed about the edges. His face was rather pale and already lines were graven on his forehead and about the eyes, which, together with heavy eyebrows, gave an expression of austerity which wholly belied his nature. Although an indefatigable worker he was not a rugged man, and was therefore very careful of his physical welfare, using every precaution to forestall some seemingly ever-impending illness. While I am sure that he had many hours of physical discomfort, he never even intimated that he was not in the best of health.“Wherever he appeared he made a profound impression by his fluent speech and the compelling force of his logic. He seldom embellished his thoughts with figurative language, and his speecheswere entirely devoid of verbosity; his power seemed to lie in the earnest, lucid simplicity of his appeal. He never sought to please the fancy of his auditors by lofty flights of oratory, nor did he indulge in any of the tricks that crafty orators employ for applause. Indeed applause seemed more disconcerting than pleasing to him.“He was by far the most approachable public man we had encountered. The distant, awe-inspiring characteristics of some of the other speakers were wholly foreign to his nature.“Mr. Kern’s humanity was made evident on several occasions, but the following incident will suffice to show that he possessed this ennobling quality to a very marked degree. It was at Monticello, if my memory serves me rightly, that one of the boys had an acute attack of indigestion and he was violently sick for a few hours. Mr. Kern did not know it until it was time to leave for the meeting; and when told that Carlston was ill, disappointment and alarm were expressed on his face as he said, ‘Where is he? Take me to him.’ He was shown to Carlston’s room, which was indeed a cheerless one, and after a quick survey of the surroundings he said, ‘This won’t do; we can not leave him here.’ And he insisted that he be transferred to a warm and cheerful room, that a physician be summoned at once, and that some one be secured to stay with him during our absence. Nor would he go to the meeting, despite the impatient entreaties of the committee to ‘hurry up,’ until every detail for Carlston’s comfort had been completed.“An amusing incident happened on the day following which revealed a phase of Mr. Kern’s character not often brought to the surface. Under no consideration would he deliberately offer offense to any one, and he was inclined to let personal incivilities go unrebuked and apparently unnoticed. Yet when goaded to retaliation he was equal to any emergency. It seems that some of the Republican papers were claiming that William H. Calkins had challenged Senator Voorhees to meet him in a series of joint debates and that Voorhees would not respond to the challenge. During Kern’s speech, I think at Crown Point, a man in the audience kept interrupting him with inquiries as to why Senator Voorhees refused to meet Calkins in joint debate. At first no attention was paid to the interruptions, but the man was so persistent that finally Mr. Kern stopped, pointed his finger at the disturber and said, ‘I am surprised than any one in Indiana has the hardihood to ask such a question. Sir, it is evident that you do not know Senator Voorhees and Mr. Calkins. Why, my friend, you could no more drag William H. Calkins into a discussion with Senator Voorhees than you could lasso a wild goose a mile high.’“One day after Mr. Kern had spoken at an afternoon meeting we drove to another town some twelve or fifteen miles distant, where he was scheduled to speak at night. Upon our arrival he went directly to the hotel to arrange for accommodations for the night. The office, which was dingy and cheerless, offered anything but encouraging prospects for the night. It was a typical country town hotel of the period with three or four of the proverbial loafingcronies of the landlord in evidence. When Mr. Kern registered the landlord looked at the name over his spectacles, and then at Mr. Kern, and no doubt hoping to create a laugh at Kern’s expense, said, ‘So you’re the feller what’s goin’ to make a Democratic speech here to-night. Well, you fellers may be Democrats, but I tell ye right now yer stoppin’ at a Republican hotel.’ Kern in a droll manner that was ridiculously funny replied, ‘I suspected as much; the Republican hostelries this fall are very gloomy places.’“It became our custom before going to bed to gather in Kern’s room and spend an hour or two in smoking, reviewing the events of the day, and singing, and those preslumber occasions I shall ever hold as cherished memories. They were indeed pleasant hours, and I am sure Mr. Kern enjoyed them as much as did we boys, for the gatherings were invariably held at his suggestion. He was fond of sentimental ballads and simple melodies, and I recall two songs which he often asked us to sing, and to which he always listened with profound attention. Of one of these songs I can recall but one verse and the chorus:“I am longing so sadly, I’m longingFor the days that have vanished and fled,For the flowers that around us were bloomingThat, alas, are all withered and dead.Tints that of all the rarestFade as upon them we gazeAnd the hours that are brightest and fairestSoon are hid with the lost yesterdays.Flitting, flitting away,All that we cherished most dear.There is nothing on earth that will stay;Roses must die with the year.”“Another song of which he was especially fond was ‘The Little Old Church on the Hill.’“One night in Kern’s room when we finished that song he said: ‘Boys, that song tells a story and paints a picture of simple rural life that all men should reverence. It is the story of the people who are the bulwark of the nation’s life.’”

“Wherever he appeared he made a profound impression by his fluent speech and the compelling force of his logic. He seldom embellished his thoughts with figurative language, and his speecheswere entirely devoid of verbosity; his power seemed to lie in the earnest, lucid simplicity of his appeal. He never sought to please the fancy of his auditors by lofty flights of oratory, nor did he indulge in any of the tricks that crafty orators employ for applause. Indeed applause seemed more disconcerting than pleasing to him.

“He was by far the most approachable public man we had encountered. The distant, awe-inspiring characteristics of some of the other speakers were wholly foreign to his nature.

“Mr. Kern’s humanity was made evident on several occasions, but the following incident will suffice to show that he possessed this ennobling quality to a very marked degree. It was at Monticello, if my memory serves me rightly, that one of the boys had an acute attack of indigestion and he was violently sick for a few hours. Mr. Kern did not know it until it was time to leave for the meeting; and when told that Carlston was ill, disappointment and alarm were expressed on his face as he said, ‘Where is he? Take me to him.’ He was shown to Carlston’s room, which was indeed a cheerless one, and after a quick survey of the surroundings he said, ‘This won’t do; we can not leave him here.’ And he insisted that he be transferred to a warm and cheerful room, that a physician be summoned at once, and that some one be secured to stay with him during our absence. Nor would he go to the meeting, despite the impatient entreaties of the committee to ‘hurry up,’ until every detail for Carlston’s comfort had been completed.

“An amusing incident happened on the day following which revealed a phase of Mr. Kern’s character not often brought to the surface. Under no consideration would he deliberately offer offense to any one, and he was inclined to let personal incivilities go unrebuked and apparently unnoticed. Yet when goaded to retaliation he was equal to any emergency. It seems that some of the Republican papers were claiming that William H. Calkins had challenged Senator Voorhees to meet him in a series of joint debates and that Voorhees would not respond to the challenge. During Kern’s speech, I think at Crown Point, a man in the audience kept interrupting him with inquiries as to why Senator Voorhees refused to meet Calkins in joint debate. At first no attention was paid to the interruptions, but the man was so persistent that finally Mr. Kern stopped, pointed his finger at the disturber and said, ‘I am surprised than any one in Indiana has the hardihood to ask such a question. Sir, it is evident that you do not know Senator Voorhees and Mr. Calkins. Why, my friend, you could no more drag William H. Calkins into a discussion with Senator Voorhees than you could lasso a wild goose a mile high.’

“One day after Mr. Kern had spoken at an afternoon meeting we drove to another town some twelve or fifteen miles distant, where he was scheduled to speak at night. Upon our arrival he went directly to the hotel to arrange for accommodations for the night. The office, which was dingy and cheerless, offered anything but encouraging prospects for the night. It was a typical country town hotel of the period with three or four of the proverbial loafingcronies of the landlord in evidence. When Mr. Kern registered the landlord looked at the name over his spectacles, and then at Mr. Kern, and no doubt hoping to create a laugh at Kern’s expense, said, ‘So you’re the feller what’s goin’ to make a Democratic speech here to-night. Well, you fellers may be Democrats, but I tell ye right now yer stoppin’ at a Republican hotel.’ Kern in a droll manner that was ridiculously funny replied, ‘I suspected as much; the Republican hostelries this fall are very gloomy places.’

“It became our custom before going to bed to gather in Kern’s room and spend an hour or two in smoking, reviewing the events of the day, and singing, and those preslumber occasions I shall ever hold as cherished memories. They were indeed pleasant hours, and I am sure Mr. Kern enjoyed them as much as did we boys, for the gatherings were invariably held at his suggestion. He was fond of sentimental ballads and simple melodies, and I recall two songs which he often asked us to sing, and to which he always listened with profound attention. Of one of these songs I can recall but one verse and the chorus:

“I am longing so sadly, I’m longingFor the days that have vanished and fled,For the flowers that around us were bloomingThat, alas, are all withered and dead.Tints that of all the rarestFade as upon them we gazeAnd the hours that are brightest and fairestSoon are hid with the lost yesterdays.Flitting, flitting away,All that we cherished most dear.There is nothing on earth that will stay;Roses must die with the year.”

“Another song of which he was especially fond was ‘The Little Old Church on the Hill.’

“One night in Kern’s room when we finished that song he said: ‘Boys, that song tells a story and paints a picture of simple rural life that all men should reverence. It is the story of the people who are the bulwark of the nation’s life.’”

It is on just such occasions as are herein described that the real character of a man asserts itself. No one who ever knew Mr. Kern at any period of his life will fail to recognize the fidelity of the portrait painted from memory by a man who was scarcely more than a boy when he knew the original.

The four years that Mr. Kern was reporter of the supreme court, 1885-1889, have been described by him in an address before the Indiana Bar Association as “in many respects the most interesting of my life.” The five judges of the supreme court with whom he was intimately associated during these years among the greatest lawyers and most distinguished men who ever sat upon the supreme bench of Indiana at one time.

Not least among the things that went to make this “the most interesting period of his career” was his intimate association with the members of the bench. He did his work well, as the seventeen volumes of the Indiana Reports bearing his name testify. But in later years it was the amusing incidents of the period that he largely drew upon in conversation. He loved his practical joke then as throughout his life, and he frequently related the following at the expense of Judge Niblack, who was not much given to frivolity. The judge had decided a case from Pike county in which some people had been indicted for maltreating a goose under the statute regarding cruelty to animals. The point at issue was as to whether a goose was an animal within the meaning of the statute and Niblack decided that it was. One of the judge’s pet hobbies was a short syllabi and he cautioned Kern and his deputies against long ones with such frequency that it made a rather disagreeable impression on the reporter. In the Pike county case, bearing Niblack’s admonition in mind, Kern decided to write the syllabus himself. He made the headline, “Criminal Law,” the subhead, “Cruelty to Animals,” and the text, “A goose is an animal.” He said nothing about it to Niblack, who read it for the first time in the proof, and then went to Kern. “I want to talk to you a little about this syllabus in the Pike county case,” he said.

“You have said to me repeatedly that you wanted these syllabi cut as short as I could,” Kern replied with simulated heat, “I had an opportunity here to show you what I could do with this opinion. You have decided that this goose was an animal, and I have so put it in the proof.”

The old judge, taking it all seriously, and assuming a conciliatory tone, replied:

“That is all right, but in this syllabus you stated it too abruptly, and I wish you would lengthen it out a little.”

This does not imply that Kern merely sought the amusing side of his work. He took pride in doing his work thoroughly and well. It was in some respects a post graduate course in the law. And no office in Indiana aside from that of governor has higher traditions or has been filled by so many men of distinction in political life. Notable among these were Benjamin Harrison, afterward president; Michael C. Kerr, afterward speaker of the National House of Representatives; Albert G. Porter, afterward governor and ambassador to Italy, and Mr. Kern, afterwards leader of the United States Senate, was to be succeeded by John L. Griffiths, one of the most brilliant orators of his time, who died while Consul-General to London. During the four years of his incumbency, Kern measured up to the high traditions of the office.

Meanwhile he was extending his acquaintance among the politicians of the state, who flocked to Indianapolis during this period of party rejuvenation and renewed hope. When not in his office he was usually to be found in the hotels or wherever the politicians congregated.

It was a period when the political worker was expected to be given more or less to conviviality, or as it was expressed to “sociability.” And never were social animals more in evidence than during this period. The young reporter of the supreme court, with his glow of humor, his ready wit, his good fellowship, soon became a prime favorite in the circle of conviviality, and the continual stream of politicians into the capital from over the state sought his companionship. The result was disastrous to his purse and destructive of his health, if not dangerous to his future. The result was that lucrative though his office was he spent his money as rapidly as he made it, and when he was renominated by his party in the campaign of 1888 he entered the contest as poor in purse though infinitely richer in friends and reputation as politician and speaker as when he sought his first nomination with the view to accumulating money. In this campaign the Democrats were greatly handicapped by the fact that the Republicanshad nominated Benjamin Harrison for the presidency and with crowds of enthusiastic partisans flocking to Indianapolis from all parts of the country, the element of state pride entered into the contest. Not satisfied with this advantage the Republican managers resorted to the notorious “blocks of five” plan of corruption, which was exposed, however, in the midst of the campaign. The result was the defeat of the entire Democratic ticket by an astonishingly small margin. Thus Kern left office as poor as when he entered. Indeed he almost immediately afterward disposed of his copyright on his seventeen volumes of reports to the Bowen-Merrill Company for a ridiculously small consideration.

Meanwhile he had definitely fixed his residence in Indianapolis, where he had no established practice and nothing to draw upon for immediate returns but his personal popularity and reputation as an orator and lawyer of ability. Before leaving Kokomo Mrs. Kern had died and in December, 1885, he had been married to Araminta A. Cooper, daughter of Dr. William Cooper of Kokomo at the home of her sister in Logansport, many of his political friends, including Governor Isaac P. Gray, “Jim” Rice and District-Attorney John E. Lamb, going up from Indianapolis. Though but nineteen years old at thetime of her marriage she became a real helpmate to her husband, mothering his baby daughter Julia, and meeting all her responsibilities then and ever afterward in a manner that increased his admiration for her along with his affection. Devoted to her home and family, of lively disposition, intensely loyal to her own, she was to contribute not only to his happiness during the remainder of his life, but not a little to his success. It was soon after his marriage that Kern finally put behind him the happy-go-lucky irresponsibility and convivial tendencies of his youth and entered upon a new life which was to bring him rich rewards.

On retiring from office, Kern formed a partnership with Leon O. Bailey, a prominent lawyer who, like himself, had a liking for politics and became definitely identified with the bar of Indianapolis, then, as now, notable for its strong men. While the firm engaged in general practice, it gave special attention to the civil side, and Kern, who had distinguished himself in his Kokomo days as a criminal lawyer only occasionally thereafter appeared in criminal cases. It is not the purpose here to dwell at length on his legal career in Indianapolis. Even the most noted cases in which he participated regularly during the remainder of his life or until his election to the senate have no more than a transitory interest. Quite early he added to his reputation atthe bar as special counsel for the state of Indiana in the famous railroad tax cases, as special counsel for the government in the equally famous cases growing out of the failure of the Indianapolis National Bank, in the “Swamp Land cases,” which involved great sums of money, and these sufficed to place him toward the head of his profession. With his character as a lawyer we are interested in that it serves to paint the portrait of the man, and with this we shall deal in the chapter—“Kern: A Composite Portrait,” with an analysis of Kern the lawyer, by Mr. Bailey, who was associated with him for ten years.

IT is not often in the recent political history of Indiana that a man with a state reputation as a leader established has aspired to a seat in the state senate, and this made Mr. Kern’s candidacy in 1892 notable. His election assured the Democratic party a leadership in that body of more than ordinary sagacity and militancy. The election of 1892 had resulted in a clean sweep in Indiana for the Democracy, which had not only delivered the electoral vote to Cleveland, but had elected Claude Matthews governor and a large majority in both branches of the legislature. The Kern of this period was quite a different man from the Kern who had retired from the office of reporter of the supreme court four years before. He had entered upon the more serious phase of his career, having put behind him definitely the conviviality of other days. Easily the best known and most eloquent member of the senate, he had the further advantage of being recognized as one of the ablest lawyers who ever sat in the state senate chamber. By sheer force of superior ability and personality he immediately took rank as the leader of his party whatever may have been the intentions of some in position to determine committee assignments.Mortimer Nye, the lieutenant governor, who made the assignments, was generous to Kern in the number of the committees to which he was appointed, including rules, finance, roads, public buildings, the city of Indianapolis, and the chairmanship of the insurance committee, but his failure to place him on the judiciary committee, in view of his position in his profession, was considered by many as remarkable. Indeed Mr. Nye’s committee assignments were quite generally criticized andThe Indianapolis Sentinel, the state organ of the party, commented pointedly upon Kern’s absence from the judiciary committee. The lieutenant governor was to prove rather obstreperous and out of harmony with party policy on several notable occasions, and to be something of a thorn in the side of Governor Matthews.

Mr. Kern at this time was described by the legislative correspondents as “among the best-dressed men in the senate.” He appeared habitually in a Prince Albert coat, and when on the streets in a black polished silk hat. His manner was cordial and ingratiating then, as always, and notwithstanding his marked partisanship at this period, the charm of his personality and his chivalric attitude toward opponents made him none the less popular on the Republican than on the Democratic side of the chamber. The legislative session of 1893 was distinguished by several notable new departures in the legislative policy of the state, especially in the line of labor legislation, and here Mr. Kern was a potent factor. He spoke frequently and with marked effect, often with force and eloquence, but more often in his brief remarks speaking in the vein of humor or ridicule.

His first prominent participation in the work of the senate must have been in the discharge of a congenial duty. He had charge of the interests of United States Senator David Turpie, who was up for re-election. In the state convention of 1892 he had undertaken, in conjunction with James M. Barrett of Fort Wayne and a few others, to make Turpie’s re-election a certainty by making an unsuccessful fight before the committee on resolutions for a party declaration in his favor. While David Turpie was one of the most scholarly and worthy champions of Democratic principles the state has produced, he was not given to the graces of typical politicians and, lacking the more spectacular qualities of men like Voorhees, he was never properly appreciated by the rank and file. He might be properly styled a leader of the leaders. After the election an effort had been made in some quarters to inject John G. Shanklin, the brilliant editor ofThe Evansville Courier, into the contest, but that gentleman refused his consent and favored Turpie. Notwithstanding his position, one vote was cast in caucus for him over the protest of Kern, who was authorized by Shanklin to make it.The speech in which Kern presented Turpie’s name, while eloquent and in better taste than such addresses usually are, is chiefly interesting here for the light it throws on the speaker’s personal attitude toward party leadership. The following excerpt might have been taken from a tribute to Kern himself:

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