II
Throughout his life Senator Kern was a voluminous letter-writer and notwithstanding the extent of his correspondence he stubbornly refused to resort to such labor-saving devices as stenography until toward the close of his life when overwhelmed with the multiplicity of duties. It was his life-long habit to reply to every letter he received, no matter how trivial its nature, with pen and ink. With him letter writing was not a lost art and he liked to write when he had the time.
There was an art to a Kern letter. He knew how, better than most men of his generation, to put personality, individuality, atmosphere into a note. No one ever put more tenderness into a letter of sympathy, more jollity into one of congratulation, more comradry into a letter to a friend or occasionally more biting sarcasm or sting into one to an enemy. Enveloped in tobacco smoke, he would write slowly by the hour, with infinite patience, painstaking in his phrasing, and his chirography was as clear, individual and beautiful as that of James Whitcomb Riley. To the vast majority of letters that reached him in connection with the routine business of the senate he did not personally reply for that would have been an impossibility, but letters of a fault-finding nature were by his direction always called to his attention. In some cases where the motive was apparent he made no reply, but in cases where the writer was laboring under a misapprehension, or honestly differed in his views, he would write at length with pen and ink, setting his correspondent right. Nor did it make any difference whether the correspondent was known to him personally or by reputation or not, if he was a constituent he went upon the theory that he was entitled to a response. These letters almost invariably brought apologetic replies, and many warm friends and supporters were made from among strangers who were thus impressed with the honesty of his own views and his genuine desire for the respect and good will of his fellow men.
His method of preparing such speeches as were formally prepared was also unique. Except for especially important occasions it was not his custom to write political speeches or special occasion addresses. He would arrange the headlines in his mind and nothing more.
Unlike most public men he did not dictate the speeches he prepared, but he would shut himself up in his room with a supply of cigars, a rough scratch pad and several sharpened pencils and write them slowly and carefully in the same beautiful chirography which gave such character to his letters. Even in the longest and most important of these there was scarcely any eliminations or additions—the copy was clean. They might have been copied rather than created, judging from the absence of erasures or emendations.