II
At the time of his return to Indiana the great debate to determine the position the Democratic party was to take on the money question had commenced. The administration of Grover Cleveland had lost the confidence of the major part of the party in the state. The bond issue stuck in the craws of the masses. The silver wave was sweeping over the country, destined to leave many wrecks in its wake and to throw upon the rocks many new lights of party leading. In Indiana the silver forces were militantly aggressive and were busily engaged in perfecting an organization which was to make history. In view of his subsequent intimacy with Mr. Bryan and the radical forces of the party, it is interesting to find that during the period of the preliminary debate Mr. Kern remained unresponsive to the fervent appeals of the friends of silver. As the time for the state convention approached, the conservative members of the party took counsel in the hope of stemming the tide which gave promise of committing the party aggressively to the cause of the free and unlimited coinage of silver without awaiting the action of any other nation. Many of the most influential and prominent party leaders in the state were strongly opposed to such action, and were convinced that such a course would work irreparable disaster to the party prospects for years to come. It was not a new party battle in Indiana. In other days, when the fiat money idea was uppermost in the public mind, it required all the prestige of the leadership of Hendricks and McDonald to dissuade the party from adopting a radical platform in conformity with the greenback philosophy.
About the middle of May, 1896, a free silver conference was held in Indianapolis which bubbled with enthusiasm and seethed with the spirit of revolution. Some of the leaders in the movement boldly announced that the failure of the party to stand for the free and unlimited coinage of silver would release them from all allegiance to the party in the campaign. The conservatives, or gold men, determined to challenge what they considered a dangerous movement at a mass meeting which was called at the English Opera House in Indianapolis on the evening of May 28. This meeting was addressed by some of the most popular leaders in the state and was presided over by Captain W. R. Myers, long an idol upon the stump. Speeches were made by Alonzo G. Smith, former attorney-general, former Congressman William D. Bynum, who had been a prime favorite with the Indiana Democracy and enjoyed a well-deserved national reputation, former Congressman George W. Cooper of Columbus and Mr. Kern. Resolutions were adopted on the motion of Pierre Gray, son of Governor Isaac P. Gray, four years before Indiana’s candidate for the presidency. A committee was appointed to work for “the cause of sound money” at the coming convention, consisting of such well-known Democrats as Thomas Taggart, John W. Holtzman, S. O. Pickens, John R. Wilson, Capt. W. R. Myers, William D. Bynum, James E. McCullough, James L. Keach and John W. Kern. It would be a travesty of history to ignore the fact that previous to the action of the national convention at Chicago Mr. Kern was strongly opposed to the free and unlimited coinage of silver without regard to the action of any other nation. He realized early the trend of the times and the difficulty of changing the drift. Times were hard. The party had been shamefully betrayed by the Interests in the making of the tariff law. The bond issue had divorced the confidence of the rank and file of the party from Cleveland. The spirit of revolution was in the air. It required courage to stand forth and command the tide to turn back.
One week later this mass meeting was met by the silver forces with one of their own at the same place which was addressed by John Gilbert Shanklin, the brilliant editor of The Evansville Courier, and former Congressman Benjamin F. Shively, who was, by long odds, the most eloquent champion of silver in the state.
The battle was on.
Seldom has a more turbulent, revolutionary convention ever met in Indiana than that which was called to order in Tomlinson Hall to fight out the party differences on the money question. Bynum, who had made himself a party idol by his mastery of the tariff question and his haughty defiance of Tom Reed, was hooted to silence repeatedly when he attempted to speak. He stood stubbornly minute after minute waiting for the lull in the storm that never came and finally took his seat. Later the motion of John E. Lamb of Terre Haute to grant him ten minutes for a hearing was hooted down. The gold delegation from Marion county (Indianapolis) was thrown out over the written protest of Kern, the only member of the committee on credentials who was not a silver man. Governor Mathews was indorsed for president, and only the personal plea of Shanklin prevented the convention from making him a delegate at large in the place of a gold man personally selected by the governor. Mr. Shively was nominated for governor and started out on his remarkable canvass in which his speeches were only approached in brilliancy by those of Bryan. Samuel M. Ralston also began his career in state politics as the nominee for secretary of state. And a little later at Chicago Bryan swept the convention off its feet with his famous “cross of gold and crown of thorns” speech and set forth on the most amazing canvass in the history of the republic.
Then the nation began to boil and bubble as never before. Silver men deserted the Republican party, and gold men proclaimed rebellion from the Democratic ranks. Families were divided and father arrayed against son and brother against brother. Nowhere was the schism more pronounced than in Indiana.
The Democratic state organization was disrupted and the state chairman thrown out in the midst of the campaign. Through the summer and on until the election in November great crowds surged and argued and fought at all the principal street corners of Indianapolis from early morning until night, and peaceful citizens were awakened from sleep at 5 o’clock in the morning by wrangling newsboys, embryo politicians, debating in loud and angry tones beneath their windows.
Many Democrats who had opposed the free silver men before the convention and remained within the party during the campaign found themselves the object of suspicion and distrust. Some of these stoically maintained silence. Others tried to make their party loyalty beyond question by promptly reversing themselves on the platform.
“Where are you going?” asked a friend of the eloquent Frank B. Burke, then United States district attorney.
“I am going down to Jeffersonville to answer an absolutely unanswerable speech against free silver made down there two weeks ago by a man named Burke,” drawled the district attorney without a smile.
Many, long prominent in the party councils, openly espoused the cause of Palmer and Buckner. Some crossed the twilight zone into the Republican party, where most of them remained.
The one Democrat in Indiana who had fought for gold whose fidelity to the party was never questioned after the Chicago convention spoke was John W. Kern.
He had made it clear in the English Opera House speech that he would abide by the will of the majority. Believing as he did that the public interest is wrapped up in the success of the general underlying principles of the Democratic party, he was unwilling, because of his disagreement with some one plank in the platform in any one campaign to be a party to the wrecking of the organization. That alone, and his willingness to abide by the will of the majority, would have kept him within the party and at its service.
But it was not long until he had other grounds for actively espousing the cause of the party under the leadership of Mr. Bryan. The instant rallying of the Black Horse Cavalry of the special interests against him, the methods of open intimidation and coercion of workingmen, the political blackmailing of bank depositors, the collection and distribution of a corruption fund never before thought of in American history soon gave to the conflict the aspect of a battle between plutocracy and democracy. The silver question became a mere incident in the struggle. It carried with it other issues to which he was ardently attached—the income tax, the popular election of senators, the protection of workingmen from the coercion of their employers at the polls, the correction of the evils of the injunction. On the broader issues of that campaign he threw himself with his customary zest into the fight. Early in the campaign he met Mr. Bryan for the first time. In his interview he made it bluntly known that before the convention he had fought against silver, and his frankness and directness at that time so won the confidence and respect of The Commoner that he said he “could ask no stronger support.” He emerged from the campaign stronger with the masses of the party than ever before, and more than ever convinced that in view of the sinister trend of the times the wrecking of the party would have been one of the greatest tragedies in American history.