Thus within a month after taking the oath as a senator Kern found himself in the enviable position of holding places on the Steering and Finance committees—a most unusual experience for a new senator. Among his other assignments was to the committee on Privileges and Elections, with which he was most intimately identified through his career in the senate. Before most new senators could be expected to learn their way about the capitol Kern was numbered among the leaders.
Senator Kern had scarcely warmed his seat in the senate before he found himself, together with seven other members of the committee on Privileges and Elections, engaged in the herculean task of investigating the charges of corruption in connection with the election of Senator Lorimer of Illinois. This required many months of ceaseless toil, and the case itself is one of the most fascinating and important in American history. Because of the enormous importance of the case and the fact that Senator Kern was forced by circumstances into the position of leadership of the forces persuaded of Lorimer’s guilt I shall touch upon this phase of his career in a separate chapter. During the period of the investigation he was necessarily withdrawn from active participation in other work of the senate, and while a member of the Finance committee in charge of the Canadian Reciprocity bill, to pass which congress had been called in extraordinary session, he was unable to participate in the hearings of the committee or the discussions on the floor to the extent that he otherwise would. During the interval, however, between the beginning of the Lorimer investigation and the final debate upon the reports of the committee he assumed a task that was very near to his heart in the championship of the Sherwood Dollar-a-Day pension bill in the senate, in the course of which he delivered the speech which attracted more general comment from the civil war veterans throughout the country than any other public utterance in forty years.
The Democratic state convention in which he was nominated for the senate had declared in favor of the immediate passage of a bill of this character, and during his campaign he had taken pains to especially indorse this plank and pledge himself to do all within his power to secure the enactment of such a law.
The election which sent Senator Kern to the senate restored the house of representatives to the Democrats for the first time in sixteen years, and General Sherwood, one of the most gallant soldiers of the civil war, who was made chairman of the Pension committee, undertook the formulation of a measure incorporating the dollar-a-day feature. This picturesque old warrier, almost eighty years of age, but as peppery in his advocacy of whatever he believed in as in the days of his youth, lived at the Congress Hall Hotel, where he came into intimate relations with Senator Kern, who undertook the leadership of the fight for the Sherwood bill after it reached the senate.
The senate, however, was still Republican, and when the house bill reached the senate it was promptly side-tracked for a less liberal measure prepared by Senator McCumber, chairman of the Pension committee of the upper chamber. When the Sherwood bill provided for a straight dollar-a-day for all the remaining veterans of the civil war, the McCumber measure was based upon a scale determined by age and length of service, but providing for a dollar a day for all totally incapacitated for manual labor through disease or wounds of service origin. It was wholly unsatisfactory to the soldiers, but met the approval of the politicians and the pure patriots of the parlor and the library and editorial sanctums. And it was understood to have the approval of the president. There was not the slightest possibility for the passage of any other bill.
This, however, did not deter Senator Kern from making a spirited plea for the more liberal measure from the house. It was his first set speech in the senate, and while comparatively short was prepared with considerable care—written with a pencil upon a pad in his beautiful chirography. During the delivery of the speech that afternoon, March 16, 1912, General Sherwood sat a few seats distant, his trumpet to his ear, nodding vigorous assent, and he was given close attention by his colleagues, but there was nothing in its reception in the senate chamber to suggest the really remarkable effect it had upon the soldiers from Massachusetts to California. The press associations carried but a meager part of the speech,but it was enough to strike a responsive chord in the men most vitally affected. The day following its delivery hundreds of letters expressive of gratitude poured in upon the senator from Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and West Virginia; the next day brought hundreds from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky; and so on until the sixth day, when they arrived as numerously from Oregon and California. No speech on the pension question had attracted such widespread attention in more than a generation. Resolutions from hundreds of Grand Army posts soon followed; and then, with the publication, and distribution by request of the speech, letters from scores of posts telling of meetings devoted to the reading of the speech for the benefit of those too old to read. This speech is treasured, no doubt, to-day by thousands of these old men all over the country.
The extraordinary session called in April, 1911, by President Taft in the hope and expectation of the early passage of the Canadian Reciprocity bill dragged dismally through the terrific heat of that summer and did not conclude until in the last week in August. The hearings by the Finance committee were unnecessarily prolonged, and largely through the insistence of leading members of the president’s own party, who feared the possible effect of theslightest breach in the protection walls. Never, unless during the period that the Payne-Aldrich bill was in process of incubation, had the capital been so overrun with the professional lobbyists of the interests, posing as representatives of the farmers, while lolling in evening dress at night in Peacock Alley at the Willard. Senator Kern, when not engaged with the Lorimer investigation, occupied his seat at the table, and he was in hearty sympathy with the principle involved and with the patriotic purpose of President Taft, for whom he entertained a personal affection. For the purpose of convenience I shall here disregard the chronological order of events, and complete the story of his work during the 62nd congress with the exception of his most important work on the Lorimer committee, which requires a separate chapter. In doing so I shall merely touch upon incidents reflecting his views on public questions of vital interests.
In the winter of 1911-12 his position relative to the legitimate interest of the nation in labor difficulties directly affecting single states, foreshadowing the fight he was destined to make on behalf of the coal miners of West Virginia, was disclosed in the discussion of a resolution directing or requesting the Commissioner of Labor to furnish full information to the senate regarding the condition of the textile mill workers of Lawrence, Massachusetts. A strikehad been on for some time, and in addition to the most startling disclosures, through the press, of the wages, ages and living conditions of the workers, it was charged that the local authorities of Lawrence had forcibly prevented the wives of the strikers from sending their children into other states where provision had been made for their proper feeding during the continuance of the strike. An opposition to the resolution had developed in the senate under the guise of a protest against any intended federal interference with the rights of the states, very similar to that which was to be invoked in the case of West Virginia, and led by the same man, Senator Bacon of Georgia. Senator Kern participated in the debate on behalf of the resolution. This was not to be his last manifestation of impatience with the disposition to invoke the “rights” and the “dignity” of states for the prevention of federal interference with barbarous conditions affecting the lowly. The resolution was ultimately adopted in amended form, but in the meanwhile the house of representatives had entered into a thorough investigation which exposed conditions so inhuman as to shock the country.
And as the Lawrence resolution foreshadowed his views on West Virginia, the views he was to express in the Lorimer report were indicated in advance in the debate on the report of the senatorial committee, which had investigated the charge that Senator Stephenson of Wisconsin had attained his seat through the wholesale corruption of voters in a primary. The accused senator, a millionaire, with no pretense to statesmanship or high political capacity, and representing the opposition to Lafollette, had admittedly turned over to his political managers extraordinary sums of money. It was his contention that this had been intended for proper purposes, the renting of halls, advertising, and the payment of the traveling expenses of speakers. It was developed that this money had undoubtedly been used for corruption purposes, but there was considerable sympathy for Stephenson, whose term was drawing to a close and who was very old and feeble. “Why disgrace him on the brink of the grave?” was the plea of his supporters. And the little frail figure with the scraggly beard and sad old eyes looking into space, while the jaws worked ceaselessly in the chewing of gum, did appeal to one’s sense of the pathetic. Senator Kern admitted to a feeling of compassion for the old man whose sins had found him out, but he was unwilling to compromise a principle on that account. There were features to the Stephenson case that appealed to him as infinitely more dangerous than any developed in the case of Lorimer, for they went directly to the debauching of the electorate. During his participation in the discussion Kern scornfully assailed two sophistries dear to the corruptionist andurged in defense of the accused—the idea that the payment of money to men “to work” for a candidate is anything other than the bribing of the man, and the suggestion that the payment of money to an editor for editorial commendation of a candidate is anything other than a bribe of the most sinister nature. These two evils—the debauching of the voter and the subsidization of the press he looked upon as the gravest danger possible to free institutions. Hating the use of money for the control of elections with all his soul, he unhesitatingly put aside his personal sympathy for a very old man, and joined the minority in voting for his expulsion from the senate, to which he ought never have been admitted.
That he was not actuated in matters of this nature by the motives of a demagogue was shown in his attitude in the vote on the impeachment of Judge Archibald, a United States circuit judge of Scranton, Pennsylvania, accused of having made corrupt use of his office. The vote was taken early in January, 1913. In the early fall of 1912 Senator Kern had entered upon the defense of the officers of the Structural Iron Workers in the federal court in Indianapolis on the supposition that the case would be concluded long before congress would convene in December. The trial dragged along through many weeks and unable and unwilling to desert his clients in the midst of their trial he was unable to return to Washingtonuntil after the Christmas holidays. Not having had the opportunity to see and hear the witnesses he asked the senate to excuse him from voting, and his request was granted. This was characteristic. The cause of Judge Archibald was an exceedingly unpopular one, and had he been an ordinary poseur in his hatred of corruption in high places he could have voted in accord with what he knew public opinion to be. But a poseur he was not—and he always catered to the commendation of his own conscience.
In less than fifteen months after entering the senate he had taken a position by common consent among the Democratic leaders of that body, and had established a national reputation as an enemy of political corruption, as a friend of the civil war veteran, and as the special champion in the senate of the working classes of the country.
SENATOR Kern had hardly had time to acquaint himself with the capitol before the senate assigned to him one of the most unpleasant, onerous and important duties of his career in placing him on the sub-committee of the committee on Privileges and Elections to investigate the charge that Senator Lorimer had entered the senate through the corruption of members of the Illinois legislature. In the election of 1908 the primary choice of the Republicans for the senatorship was Senator Hopkins, the Democratic choice Lawrence B. Stringer. The election resulted in 127 Republicans and 77 Democrats being sent to the legislature, and in the regular order the Republican candidate would have been promptly elected to the senate. Many Republicans, however, had refused to abide by the edict of the primary, and a prolonged deadlock was the result. The balloting extended through many weeks, and in the meanwhile the Republicans, engaged in a bitter battle in the United States senate over the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill, and with numerous schedules in danger of defeat because of the disaffection represented by theopposition of Dolliver, Beveridge and others, became insistent upon the strengthening of their lines through the termination of the deadlock in Illinois and the election of a Republican senator. Thus the senatorial contest at Springfield took on a national importance. The Republicans were suffering through the deadlock, which deprived them of an additional vote, and the Democrats were having all the advantage. Suddenly fifty-three Democrats, disregarding the plea of their national committeeman that they remain loyal to their party’s candidate, joined with fifty-five Republicans and elected William Lorimer, a reactionary Republican who could be depended upon by the Aldrich-Penrose forces in the tariff fight at Washington. Almost a year laterThe Chicago Tribunepublished the sensational confession of Charles A. White, a Democratic member of the legislature, implicating other members in a wholesale purchase under the engineery of Lee O’Neil Browne, the leader of the majority faction of the Democrats. This was followed by the filing of formal charges in the senate against Lorimer, and an investigation was instituted under the direction of a sub-committee of the committee on Privileges and Elections under the chairmanship of Senator Burrows of Michigan. This investigation was farsical in many respects, and the committee reported in substance that the charges had not been sustained.The evidence that was permitted to leak through, however, was so damning and convincing in its nature that a minority report was submitted, and powerful speeches against the “blond boss,” as Lorimer was called, were delivered by Senator Root and Beveridge. The press of the country generally characterized the report of the committee as a “white wash,” and the public was aroused.
Almost a month after the congress had adjourned a committee of the state senate of Illinois, investigating the charges, was informed through the editor ofThe Chicago Tribunethat Clarence S. Funk of the International Harvester Company had been approached immediately after the election of Lorimer by Edward Hines of the Lumber Trust with the information that it had required $100,000 to elect Lorimer, and the request that Funk’s company contribute $10,000 toward the fund.
Immediately afterward Senator Lafollette introduced a resolution in the United States senate providing for a new investigation.
Thus was inaugurated one of the most exhaustive and significant investigations ever held by the United States senate, which was to delve deep into the most sinister influences that assail the integrity of free institutions, the debasing effect of bi-partisan combinations of politicians for personal gain, the corrupting influence of powerful financial elements upon thepublic life of the nation, the all-too frequent susceptibility of law makers to the blandishments of the bribe giver. For 102 days the committee was to listen to the unraveling of one of the most startling tales of political debauchery ever told. Before it was to file an incongruous company of witnesses—leaders of the United States senate, such as Aldrich and Penrose, potential political leaders like Roger A. Sullivan, governors and former governors, the millionaire and the beggar, the briber and the bribed, journalists and bartenders, detectives and street car conductors, drunkards and reformers, the high and low, the rich and poor, the good and bad. It was to become a participant in one of the most tremendous political dramas ever enacted in America—comedy treading on the heels of tragedy, to be followed by burlesque and vaudeville. It was to have a hundred million people, the perpetuity of whose institutions was at stake, as an audience, and they were to await with the keenest interest the moral of the play.
And in this drama Senator Kern was soon to play the most important rôle, from the viewpoint of those who believed the extermination of Lorimerism to be essential to the safety of free institutions. There was nothing theatrical about the setting of the play. With the exception of a few weeks in Chicago the committee held its hearings in a prosy, unadorned, and small room on the ground floor of the senate office building.The witness chair in the center in the front of the room—to one side the long table of the press correspondents, at which sat some of the cleverest men of the profession—on the opposite side the members of the committee, and stretching back to the wall chairs for the audience. These were often, for the most part, unoccupied, but usually they were filled and many were standing—attaches of the capitol who dropped in while on their errands to catch a few words of the witnesses. These attaches were for the most part intense partisans of the accused senator, who found ways of making their feeling felt. And strangely enough the greater part of the audience through those hot summer days of 1911 and the winter days of 1912 were intensely loyal to the blond boss—so much so that the capitol policeman stationed in the room was requested by a Lorimer partisan to move the parties who were not sufficiently demonstrative in their jubilation when the accused man scored.
In the front row sat Lorimer—bland, humble, the picture of innocent martyrdom—a pose he consistently maintained until he walked out of the senate at the behest of his colleagues and to the applause of the republic. Nothing so damaging as to disturb his composure, nothing so startling as to coax to his placid features an expression of surprise. And beside him sat the Symbol of his ruin—Edward Hines, themillionaire lumber man whose boast of having “put Lorimer over” whispered in the lobby of the Union League Club at Chicago resounded through the country. This strangely indiscreet, purse-proud exponent of Big Business at its worst hovered near Lorimer like a shadow. And there too beside him sat the clever, brilliant, sarcastic and witty Judge Henecy, his attorney—as resourceful and able as any lawyer in the country. Across the room at another table were the counsel of the committee, Healy and Marble, keen, alert, as resourceful as the judge and buttressed about by a better cause.
Senator Kern was not eager for the task the senate had assigned him. It meant his practical withdrawal from all other senate activities for an indefinite period, and his concentration as in a case in court upon every word of evidence adduced. While morally positive of Lorimer’s guilt from the beginning, he was early convinced, and his sense of duty gradually forced him into greater and greater prominence as a developer of the case against the accused. A man of kindly instincts, he had never relished the rôle of a prosecutor, and in his private practice of his profession had seldom appeared except in defense in criminal cases. But once convinced of Lorimer’s guilt, he determined that every possible avenue of information tending to uncover what he considered a great crime against American institutions shouldbe followed to the end. It was early whispered about and generally credited that the second investigation, like the first, would end in a white wash. Very early he was startled to find from their general attitude that the majority of the committee were apparently not impressed by what he considered overwhelming evidence of guilt. The honesty of this attitude he never questioned, but, convinced himself, he set himself to the task of developing the evidence along the line of his own conviction. This led him to the position he unquestionably held at the conclusion of the hearings as the leader in the fight for the unseating of the blond boss.
The line of cleavage on the committee was clear very soon after the hearings began. Feeling as he did early in the proceedings, that a majority of the committee would support a report favorable to the accused, Kern, intensely convinced of his guilt, keenly felt the responsibility which fell to him. This feeling was shared by two other members of the committee, Kenyon and Lea. It was during the period of the Lorimer hearing that the feeling of mutual respect and affection sprang up between the three men which continued until Senator Kern’s death. All three were new members of the senate, but Kern had a long career behind him and was more than sixty years old, while Kenyon and Lea wereunusually young and comparatively new to public life. They were both of the same general type and this a type that strongly appealed to the older man—the clean-cut, buoyant, independent, courageous and incorruptible type, bubbling with the enthusiasms of youth, and ardently anxious to serve the country according to their light. Both were men of vigorous mentality, keen and alert and “spoiling for a fight” with such wrongs as might present themselves, and both were skilled lawyers and competent for the task assigned them. It was most natural that young men, new to the senate, and sharing in a desire to serve the people, should have drifted together; the fact that both drifted toward the veteran of sixty was wonderfully complimentary to the character of the older man. Their common hatred of political corruption, their common indifference to party lines where corruption was involved, their common contempt for the fetish of “senatorial courtesy” which has so frequently served a sinister end, and their common conviction of the guilt of the blond boss, gave them a common cause, and the three stood together, drawing closer all the while, throughout the long-drawn battle. When the committee was not in session the two younger senators frequently called at Kern’s office for informal discussions of the evidence. “My boys,” Kern called them. And to a somewhat less degree he became strongly attachedto John Marble, the brilliant young lawyer employed by the committee as counsel. The fervor and whole-heartedness with which the lawyer threw himself into the preparation of his case and into the cross-examination of witnesses early won his admiration. He loved youth, with its shining armor, and especially when he conceived it to be “fighting the battles of the Lord.” The brunt of the actual battle against Lorimerism was thus waged by youth grouped about the venerable statesman to whose judgment it often looked for guidance on questionable points.
And Kern was well qualified for leadership. His almost half century of participation in politics and association with politicians had left little for him to learn of the ways and wiles of the breed. He knew how the game was played according to Springfield, for that capital of Illinois had no monopoly on the combination of bi-partisan politicians with unscrupulous business interests. It was not easy to deceive him. And here, too, his unusual gift at cross-examination which had been his forte in the trial of cases all his life was to stand him in good stead. He knew men, understood human nature, and was quick in the appraisement of the character and truthfulness of witnesses. Nature, acquirements and character combined to make him an important factor in the extirpation of Lorimerism.
An examination of the voluminous evidence in the case will disclose that the majority of the committee took little or no part in the examination of witnesses, and the major part, and practically all the cross-examination of Lorimer witnesses was done by the three members who came to the conclusion of Lorimer’s guilt, Kern, Kenyon and Lea. Senator Kern was the most active.
The theory on which Kern worked after a careful reading of the evidence before the Burrows committee and the Helm committee of the state senate of Illinois and the statement of Funk was about this: Edward Hines, interested in the lumber schedule of the Payne-Aldrich bill and lobbying in Washington, was urged by Aldrich and Penrose to help hurry a new Republican vote into the senate from Illinois to help out in the tariff fight. After conferences it was agreed that Lorimer should be the choice, and Hines undertook to put the agreement into effect. He financed the fight for Lorimer. The money was used through the management of Lee O’Neil Browne, the clever leader of the majority wing of the Democrats in the lower house of the legislature, and with the knowledge of Lorimer. He was absolutely positive that the wholesale defection of the Democrats to Lorimer could only have been the result of corrupt influence because the election of a reactionary Republican senator might, in view of the conditions surrounding the tariff fight in the senate, determine a national policy to which Democrats were elementally opposed and upon which they had made their campaign one year before. Had these Democrats gone to a Republican who would vote with Dolliver and Beveridge he might not have been so sure. Going to Lorimer, he was predisposed to the belief that money had been used. This frame of mind manifested itself repeatedly in all his examination of political witnesses. He appealed to Governor Deneen for one reason for Democrats deserting their party to vote for a reactionary Republican under conditions existing in Washington; to Yates, to Hopkins, to Stringer, to the members of the legislature who deserted and without once securing a plausible reply.
The hatred Senator Kern engendered at this time among the friends of Lorimer or the men accused did not appear upon the surface. The blond boss proved himself a consummate artist in the concealment of his hostility until after Kern had summed up the case against him.
But the existence of this hostility was not concealed. For a period of two months there was scarcely a day that did not bring its batch of scurrilous unsigned letters with a Chicago date mark.
Meanwhile the hearings seemed destined to dragon interminably. Long before the last witness was heard enough evidence had been submitted upon which any member of the committee might have formed an opinion. Newspapers began to hint that the purpose was to tire and disgust and confuse by the accumulation of the pages of the testimony.
The official stenographer of the committee throughout the hearings had been Milton W. Blumenberg, who stood high in his profession. One Saturday afternoon when the Burns stenographer was testifying, Blumenberg stood behind his chair looking at the witness’s notes. The hearing was adjourned for dinner to be renewed in the evening. The evidence disclosed that upon leaving the room on adjournment Blumenberg met a woman employed by the committee who immediately, and, strangely enough, challenged his opinion on the genuineness of the notes. He declared them “manufactured,” “faked,” and immediately after that Edward Hines and others of the Lorimer party appeared upon the scene and Blumenberg’s opinion was repeated for their edification. At the hearing that night Blumenberg broke in unexpectedly with a declaration that the notes were manufactured, and when the startled members of the committee undertook to question him as to his motive they were told they were “not the most important people in the world.” He was immediately placed under arrest for contempt andplaced in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, with instructions that no one should be permitted to communicate with him. The whole atmosphere had become so colored with the idea of corruption that the incident created a painful impression. He was discharged from the service of the committee, and the matter was dropped on the representation of Blumenberg’s friends that he was the victim of a nervous breakdown.
But hard on the heels of this incident another sensational incident fed the public curiosity when a twenty-year-old telegraph operator of the Postal Company, stationed at the New Willard Hotel, who had sent a telegram for the Burns detective, testified that Edward Hines had attempted to bribe her with a roll of bills in his hand to let him read the message given in by the detective. The girl had not sought the notoriety and was so transparently truthful in her charming girlish way that no one not directly interested in the case could have doubted her veracity. Thus the trail of the serpent seemed to lead directly back to Washington.
After the conclusion of the hearings the chief concern of the supporters of Lorimer was to postpone a vote in the senate as long as possible; and the first step toward this end was to indefinitely postpone thefiling of a report. The hearings closed February 9, 1912, and it was not until May 20th that a report was presented to the senate, and it was largely due to the insistence of Kern, Kenyon and Lea that the delay was not greater. The proceedings of the committee when it met on March 27th to vote on a report are of historic importance and belong to the public.
The first resolution offered by Senator Jones was to the effect that nothing had developed in the hearings to justify a reversal of the solemn and deliberate judgment of the senate in the vote on the result of the first hearings. This challenge was promptly met by Senator Kern in the following resolution:
“That in the opinion of the committee there were used and employed in the election of William Lorimer to the senate of the United States corrupt methods and practices.”
“That in the opinion of the committee there were used and employed in the election of William Lorimer to the senate of the United States corrupt methods and practices.”
Before a vote was taken on the Kern resolution, which was offered as a substitute for the Jones resolution, the committee voted on an amendment to the latter offered by Senator Lea to the effect that the investigation had disclosed that corrupt practices and methods had been employed. This went directly to the heart of the matter and was defeated by a vote of five to three, Kern, Lea and Kenyon voting for the amendment.
Senator Lea then followed with a point of order to the effect that the Jones resolution was not responsive to the resolution of the senate authorizing the investigation in that the committee was only instructed to investigate and report whether corrupt methods and practices had been used in the election of Lorimer. Senator Dillingham promptly ruled this out of order; Lea appealed from the decision; Jones moved to lay Lea’s appeal on the table, and this was done by a vote of four to three, Kern, Kenyon and Lea voting against the tabling of Lea’s appeal.
Kern’s substitute motion was then defeated by the usual vote of five to three and by the same vote the Jones resolution was adopted.
This, however, was not sufficiently vindicative of the blond boss, and Senator Jones moved a resolution denying the existence of any proof indicative of the existence of a “jackpot” fund in the legislature that elected Lorimer “other than the statements of White, Beckemeyer, Link and Holslaw that they were paid money after the election.” Senator Kern moved to amend by adding after the word “Holslaw” the words “and certain circumstances corroborating said statements.” The Kern amendment was defeated by the usual vote of five to three.
Senator Kern next introduced the following resolution:
“That in the opinion of this committee there was a fund distributed in the city of St. Louis to certain members of the Illinois legislature who had votedfor William Lorimer and also that Senator Broderick paid to Senator Holslaw in the city of Chicago money on two occasions.”
“That in the opinion of this committee there was a fund distributed in the city of St. Louis to certain members of the Illinois legislature who had votedfor William Lorimer and also that Senator Broderick paid to Senator Holslaw in the city of Chicago money on two occasions.”
This was met at once by Senator Johnston with the amendment that if money was paid out at Chicago or any other city it was not to vote for Lorimer. After some discussion Senator Lea offered a substitute for Kern’s resolution, which the latter accepted, to the effect that on certain specified dates certain specified men distributed money to members of the Illinois legislature at St. Louis. The evidence had been overwhelmingly convincing on this point, but the resolution failed to secure votes other than those of Kern, Kenyon and Lea. Other resolutions followed completely and rather aggressively exonerating both Edward Hines and Lorimer, and the line of cleavage on the committee was unmistakably made.
The committee having taken its stand the three anti-Lorimer senators were insistent upon an early report to the senate. Night after night Kern, Kenyon and Lea met to go over the evidence with a view to the preparation of the minority report. Acting upon the theory that if they could show from the evidence that votes had been purchased for Lorimer their position would be vindicated and unassailable, they agreed to brush aside all reference to much of the evidence and to concentrate on the essentials and to make their report both brief and vigorous. Expressing a vigorous dissent from the proposed white washing of Hines by the majority, expressing confidence in the truth of the testimony of Funk and Burgess, they briefly analyzed the evidence of a number of the witnesses, and concluded:
“Believing that the confession of the members of the legislature, strengthened by corroborating circumstances and by other evidence relating to the members of the legislature who did not confess, establish conclusively not only that at least ten members were purchased for the purpose of electing William Lorimer to the senate, but that the record reeks and teems with evidence of a general scheme of corruption, we have no hesitancy in stating that the investigation establishes beyond contradiction that the election of William Lorimer was obtained by corrupt means and was therefore invalid, and we submit the following resolution:“Resolved, That corrupt methods and practices were employed in the election of William Lorimer to the senate of the United States from the state of Illinois, and that his election was therefore invalid.“William S. Kenyon.“John W. Kern.“Luke Lea.”
“Believing that the confession of the members of the legislature, strengthened by corroborating circumstances and by other evidence relating to the members of the legislature who did not confess, establish conclusively not only that at least ten members were purchased for the purpose of electing William Lorimer to the senate, but that the record reeks and teems with evidence of a general scheme of corruption, we have no hesitancy in stating that the investigation establishes beyond contradiction that the election of William Lorimer was obtained by corrupt means and was therefore invalid, and we submit the following resolution:
“Resolved, That corrupt methods and practices were employed in the election of William Lorimer to the senate of the United States from the state of Illinois, and that his election was therefore invalid.
“William S. Kenyon.“John W. Kern.“Luke Lea.”
While all three of the minority members were active in the preparation of their report, there appears to be no doubt that Senator Kern’s judgment was largely the determining factor in laying out the line of battle.
The majority report was lengthy and argumentative, covering ninety pages, while the minority were able to state their case in twenty-two. The moment it became known that a majority of the committee had vigorously espoused the cause of Lorimer the press and magazines of the country declared that the nation was to be treated to another white washing of Lorimer.The Nation’scomment was that:
...“All that is left for the senate to say is whether its sense of smell is less acute than that of the country.”
...“All that is left for the senate to say is whether its sense of smell is less acute than that of the country.”
The filing of the reports did not end Senator Kern’s labors in the case, for it was decided that he should open the debate in favor of the expulsion of Lorimer and analyze the evidence submitted for the benefit of the senate and the country. It is little less than remarkable that he was not given greater credit by the press of the country for the part he played in ridding the senate of Lorimerism. To satisfy myself that his was the dominating part I have appealed to the three men who were in position to know, the two senators who acted with him and the Washington correspondent ofThe Chicago Tribune, who followed every detail of the case. The three unite in crediting Kern with having been the dominating influence. Senator Kenyon said that “John Kern’s ideas were the predominating influence.” Senator Lea said:
“Senator Kern was a dominating force in that part of the Lorimer committee that resulted in the full investigation of the case. The committee was intended by some to be a white wash and it was Kern’s determination to prevent that. His insight into human nature and knowledge of men enabled us to extricate from unwilling witnesses incidents in Illinois politics which gave color and meaning to much testimony that would otherwise have been barren of significance. Again Senator Kern’s tact prevented much friction in the committee that might have resulted in outbursts that would have diverted attention from the main issue—the guilt or innocence of Lorimer. Again Kern’s droll and ridiculing sense of humor so discomfited many of the witnesses that they could not adhere to their prepared testimony.”
“Senator Kern was a dominating force in that part of the Lorimer committee that resulted in the full investigation of the case. The committee was intended by some to be a white wash and it was Kern’s determination to prevent that. His insight into human nature and knowledge of men enabled us to extricate from unwilling witnesses incidents in Illinois politics which gave color and meaning to much testimony that would otherwise have been barren of significance. Again Senator Kern’s tact prevented much friction in the committee that might have resulted in outbursts that would have diverted attention from the main issue—the guilt or innocence of Lorimer. Again Kern’s droll and ridiculing sense of humor so discomfited many of the witnesses that they could not adhere to their prepared testimony.”
John Callan O’Loughlin said:
“I am so glad that you are writing the biography of Senator Kern. He was a big man, straightforward, wholesome, and one with a high ethical sense. His conduct in connection with the Lorimer case in itself justifies the country in holding up his memory to remind future generations of what they owe to him.“Mr. Kern, when he began his duty as a member of the Lorimer investigating committee—it was a distasteful duty—realized as did we all that the country stood at the parting of the ways. Whether corruption was to continue in connection with the election of United States senators or whether the people were to be given an opportunity to have their own representatives in the upper house was the question he was called upon to investigate and determine. I know the pressure that was brought to bear upon him directly, indirectly, openly and insiduously, and I know that he stood up against it with that whole-hearted courage which he manifested in other matters he faced.“As a member of the investigating committee it was Mr. Kern’s cross-examination which frequently brought out points that even members of the committee were endeavoring to cover up. If he had not been on the committee, I hesitate to say what the result might have been. Not only in the committee, but on the floor of the senate he pressed the fight against corruption. His arguments, or rather his presentation of facts, were absolutely convincing, but more than this, the fact that he had come to the conclusion that Lorimer’s seat had been purchased unquestionably influenced senators who recognized his integrity and the reliability of his judgment.“There is no doubt that the expulsion of Lorimer from the senate, which was due largely to Senator Kern’s efforts, brought about the amendment to the Constitution for the direct election of senators. In itself, this is a monument to Mr. Kern.”
“I am so glad that you are writing the biography of Senator Kern. He was a big man, straightforward, wholesome, and one with a high ethical sense. His conduct in connection with the Lorimer case in itself justifies the country in holding up his memory to remind future generations of what they owe to him.
“Mr. Kern, when he began his duty as a member of the Lorimer investigating committee—it was a distasteful duty—realized as did we all that the country stood at the parting of the ways. Whether corruption was to continue in connection with the election of United States senators or whether the people were to be given an opportunity to have their own representatives in the upper house was the question he was called upon to investigate and determine. I know the pressure that was brought to bear upon him directly, indirectly, openly and insiduously, and I know that he stood up against it with that whole-hearted courage which he manifested in other matters he faced.
“As a member of the investigating committee it was Mr. Kern’s cross-examination which frequently brought out points that even members of the committee were endeavoring to cover up. If he had not been on the committee, I hesitate to say what the result might have been. Not only in the committee, but on the floor of the senate he pressed the fight against corruption. His arguments, or rather his presentation of facts, were absolutely convincing, but more than this, the fact that he had come to the conclusion that Lorimer’s seat had been purchased unquestionably influenced senators who recognized his integrity and the reliability of his judgment.
“There is no doubt that the expulsion of Lorimer from the senate, which was due largely to Senator Kern’s efforts, brought about the amendment to the Constitution for the direct election of senators. In itself, this is a monument to Mr. Kern.”
It fell to Senator Kern to open the debate on the reports of the committee and to review the evidence upon which the minority had reached its conviction of the guilt of the accused senator. It was not an easy task to adequately, concisely, survey the field that had been covered by hearings covering more than a hundred days, requiring 8,588 printed pages, and including the testimony of 180 witnesses. Kern’s training and skill as a lawyer made it possible for him to quickly brush aside the non-essentials, but it was necessary for him to go over the greater part of the record for the proper verification and marshaling of his facts. He spent many days carefully going through the voluminous testimony jotting down his notes on scrap paper, and the greater part of the week preceding the delivery of his speech found him at his room at Congress Hall engaged in the writing of his speech—for the major part of it was reduced to writing and read in the senate. The speech was delivered in four parts on four separate days, and when he began the delivery of the first part nothing of that which had been prepared was to be delivered in the second part. In fact each day he spoke found him working upon his speech up to the moment he was summoned to the senate, and he found time for the typewriting of practically none of it. The Press Gallery was clamoring for advance copy, but not a line was furnished any paper in advance of its delivery, and the Chicago papers which published itin full were forced to make special arrangements with the official reporter of the senate. He was physically almost exhausted when he began and almost ill before he concluded. That it was a powerful, unanswerable, logical and eloquent arraignment of the accused senator was the consensus of opinion among the lawyers of the senate, and while other senators spoke with comparative brevity in favor of the minority report, the ground had been so exhaustively and conclusively covered by Kern that these confined themselves to one or two features of the case. He did not spare in his sarcasms the untenable positions of the majority members of the committee. He took the position that members of the legislature had been bribed; showed from the evidence that there was no escape from that position; traced the relationship between those members and Lee O’Neil Browne, the Lorimer leader, and between Browne and the senator and then invited the senate to accept the reasoning of the majority report if it could. The plea of res adjudicata, upon which the friends of Lorimer made their final stand, and which was suggested by the Lorimer attorney in the last hours of the hearings, appealed to Kern as a brazen daylight attempt to thwart the ends of justice.
Beginning on June 4 he closed after an exhaustive analysis of the evidence on June 8th with an eloquent denunciation of the bi-partisan system of whichLorimer was a member, a beneficiary, and was to become a victim.
Almost a month later the discussion was resumed with Kern departing radically from his custom of not interrupting senators. Time and again he challenged senators speaking for the majority report with the evidence and seldom without disclosing the weakness of the speaker’s contention. It is not surprising in view of the important part he played in the development of the case against Lorimer and Lorimerism that the anonymous attacks that had been made upon him should find open expression on the floor of the senate. This attack came in the course of Lorimer’s speech in his own defense.
This speech was in many respects a remarkable one; not remarkable in that it was convincing, for the speaker made no attempt to discuss the evidence, but in its eloquence and human appeal. It was a masterly appeal to the emotions from a consummate criminal lawyer conscious of a desperate cause and bent on diverting the jury from the irresistible facts to the non-essentials. The manner of the delivery would have rejoiced the heart of a Belasco. It was dramatic, intensely so. No one listening to Lorimer as he spoke that day to a packed gallery and with the floor of the senate thronged with attaches and members of the house would have been surprised had he been told that the speaker was one of the greatestjury orators in the country. It was in the course of this speech that Lorimer entered upon a bitter attack upon Kern which indicated unmistakably the object of his special animus.
At the time he began this attack Senator Kern, who had been ill for a month, but able to attend the sessions of the senate, was lying down in his room in the senate office building asleep. As soon as the attack began one of his friends sent word of the trend of the Lorimer speech and Kern immediately started for the capitol. He was met in the subway under the capitol and told of the nature of the attack. It was then and there decided that unless the attack became too virulent Kern should utterly ignore it. Those participating in the conference were agreed that such an incident as a personal exchange between Kern and Lorimer could only tend to divert attention from the real issue and to possibly postpone the hour of voting. With this understanding Kern proceeded to the senate chamber and finding a chair within a few feet of Lorimer turned it so as to face the speaker, and in that position remained through the remainder of the speech. He found no occasion to interrupt.
The scene in the senate chamber at the conclusion of Lorimer’s speech in his own defense was dramatic. The walls were lined with members of thehouse and attaches of the senate, the press gallery was filled to capacity, the other galleries packed with men and women, and from the latter came stifled sobs as Lorimer rather pathetically described the consolation that would counter affect his probable humiliation in going home to the embrace of his family. With an impassioned assertion that his expulsion would be a “crime” of “the senate of the United States,” he paused for a moment, still a picture of outraged innocence, and then in his best theatrical manner said, “I am ready,” and sank exhausted into his seat. The roll call on the final vote was followed with intense interest, not to determine the result which had now become inevitable, but to satisfy the curiosity of spectators as to the position of individual members. Throughout the roll call the accused senator sat expressionless, as during the hearings, and even the trembling voice of Cullom, his venerable colleague who had voted to sustain him over a year before, casting a vote for his expulsion had no effect. The breakdown of the indomitable Tillman in reading his explanation of his vote against expulsion added an unexpected thrill to the occasion.
The vote was announced in the official tone of monotony.
The minority report was adopted by a vote of 55 to 28. Senator Newlands immediately rose in the resulting silence to present the credentials of a newsenator and the business of the senate proceeded as though the waters of oblivion had not just closed over a career.
For a few moments Lorimer sat motionless in his seat—then rose and looking neither to the right nor the left passed back the center aisle and into the Republican cloak room for the last time. At that moment there were probably some who felt a fierce joy in his degradation, but Senator Kern was not one of these.
SENATOR KERN had not completely recovered from the strain of the Lorimer case when he found himself unexpectedly precipitated into the maelstrom of the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore, unquestionably the most remarkable assembly of the representatives of any party ever held in America. There have been many versions of his part in the important features of the convention, but the strange thing is that there has been such a general ignorance of the fact that he was in truth one of the potential figures in that great drama. It is known to all, of course, that he was the chairman of the committee on Resolutions and Mr. Bryan’s candidate for the temporary chairmanship, but the circumstances under which he became the candidate, the importance of his strategy in that contest, and the fact that but for his dissent his name would have been presented as a presidential candidate at a time when the convention seemed hopelessly deadlocked and with the support of a number of the most potential states, have never figured in the public’s estimate of his rôle. It is the intention here to relate this story as fully as possible without unpleasantly affecting