The life of John Worth Kern

by Claude G. Bowers

III

Even more epoch-making was the passage during this session of the first employers’ liability law ever enacted in Indiana, and at a time when not more than three other states had passed such legislation. The bill was introduced in the house by S. M. Hench, and after a rather spirited fight it passed that body and reached the senate, where it was diverted from the committee on labor to the judiciary committee. Here it seemed destined to remain. Every effort on the part of its author to get a report was unavailing. Meanwhile a powerful railroad lobby had swooped down on the capitol and was exerting itself in the open to encompass its defeat. It was generally understood that Lieutenant Governor Nye, who was a railroad lawyer with a professional view of the measure, was strongly opposed to it, and when, after having reached the senate on February 17th, the month of March came, with the certainty that but four days remained for the passage of bills, it became apparent that extraordinary measures would have to be taken if it were to become a law. The railroad men’s legislative committee had reached the end of its rope. On the morning of March 1 The Indianapolis Sentinel demanded action upon it in an editorial that placed the lieutenant governor in an embarrassing position by the significant suggestion that “the bill should not have been referred to the judiciary committee in the first place;” and that put the Democratic members on their mettle with the warning that in the event of the failure of its passage “the Democratic party will be held responsible.” This editorial, the first of several that were to appear, was bitterly resented by Mr. Nye and the members of the judiciary committee, who were, nevertheless, thereby placed on the defensive. Other editorials charging responsibility upon the railroad lobby, put all the members of the senate on their guard.

On March 3 the labor leaders appealed to Kern to make one final effort. He was in hearty sympathy with the measure, but up to this time had not been asked to take the active management of it in the senate. On the night of that very day he appeared before the judiciary committee and debated the merits of the bill with the railroad lawyers, who were there to oppose it. The committee, unfriendly from the beginning, and rather embittered, no doubt, by the editorial reflections upon it, stubbornly refused to report the bill unless the railroad employees would agree to accept a certain amendment. On the morning of the 4th, the last day it could be acted upon, Kern called a meeting of the legislative committee of the Federation of Labor, and it was agreed by them that the acceptance of the amendment would be preferable to no bill at all. This agreement on their part was then reduced to writing by Kern, and with the signatures of the legislative committee affixed he hastened to the judiciary committee and insisted upon a report. When the bill was reported with the recommendation that it pass as amended, he moved concurrence in the report, the suspension of the constitutional rules, and its passage. It was now rather late in the day and the amendment required its repassage in the house—a fact that the enemies of the bill doubtless counted upon. But the moment it passed the senate Kern hastened to the house and saw Captain James B. Curtis, the speaker, who had all other business suspended to consider the bill as amended. It only required twenty minutes to get it through the house the second time, and Kern personally took it to the governor for his signature.

This was one of the greatest victories that labor ever won in the Indiana legislature. Since that time the world has moved far in the way of remedial legislation, and the employers’ liability law of 1893 has long been antiquated, but at a time when only two or three states in the union had enacted such legislation it was a signal and significant triumph for the labor cause in Indiana.

This, too, was a service that laboring men never forgot—and this, too, contributed to fix Kern’s status in the minds of the enemies of labor as dangerous and demagogic.

During this same session Kern took a leading part in the passage of a child labor law, a fact that was recalled more than a quarter of a century later when the president of the United States placed upon him the responsibility of piloting through the United States senate the first national child labor measure ever written in the statutes.

Quite as indicative of his life-long attitude toward labor problems was his introduction of a bill to establish a state board of conciliation for the settlement of controversies between employers and employees. This bill reached third reading, but failed of passage.

The close of the session found Kern more of a state figure than he had ever been before. He had been easily the dominating figure, the interesting personality. His speeches had been characterized by more substance, more sparkle, more originality than are customarily heard in the Indiana legislature. His humor and ridicule had delighted the objects of them. His social qualities had endeared him to all his colleagues. And among members of the opposition it was understood that while he was intense in his political convictions there was nothing bigoted or bitter in his estimate of men who opposed them. This was disclosed in many graceful little incidents, as when he moved that the senate adjourn in respect to the memory of James G. Blaine.