III
During the four years Kern’s relations with President Wilson were cordial and confidential. His admiration for the president knew no bounds. He never left him after a conference without being impressed anew with his remarkable grasp of affairs, his amazing prescience, his genius for work. “Uncannily wise”—was his verdict on one occasion. His conferences at the White House were so frequent that they became as the regular routine. Very often he went to the White House at night alone. And while some statesmen never failed to capitalize all meetings with the president, one of the rules laid down by Kern for the guidance of his office force was that no publicity should ever be given to his visits to the other end of the avenue. No living man is capable of properly estimating his services to the first administration of Woodrow Wilson but the president himself.
During the trying days of late August and early September, 1916, the country was seriously threatened with a general railroad strike that would have prostrated business and wrought general ruin. There have been a few more important but probably never more dramatic incidents than those surrounding the president’s efforts to save the country from this disaster. When he summoned the railroad presidents and the men to the White House for conferences it was with high hopes that a mere appeal to their patriotism would result in mutual concessions, but it soon developed that the presidents of the roads were indifferent to the public welfare. As the day set for the strike approached everything was laid aside by the president and the congress to concentrate upon the one pressing problem. On the night of the day the railroad presidents refused to accept President Wilson’s plan of settlement calling for an eight-hour day for the men, increased freight rates for the roads and a permanent arbitration commission, some light is thrown on the situation as it appeared to the leaders at the capitol in a letter of Senator Kern to Mrs. Kern:
“I am heartsick to-night that I can not be with you to-morrow (Sunday), but things are happening so rapidly here that I can’t leave. Nobody knows what is going to happen the next day. The railroad situation is alarming. The railroad presidents who are here seem to be determined not to yield to the president’s requests, and if they persist it means the greatest strike in the history of the country—one that will tie up every railroad and stop every train in the country. The president came to the capitol to-day and called Senator Newlands, chairman of the Railroad committee, and myself into his room to talk over a proposition to amend some of our arbitration laws and the Interstate Commerce law, so as to make further negotiations possible.... It is difficult to-night to foretell just what the outcome will be. The men who own the roads seem to care nothing for the public interests, and if disaster comes it will largely be their fault. I am calling the Steering committee together to-morrow (Sunday) and the president will probably come down to confer with a number of senators and congressmen Monday morning. I am holding up in health first rate. The weather has been much better since I last wrote you and is pleasant to-night. Yesterday morning I woke up at 6 o’clock and pulled down the blinds and thought I would sleep until 7:30 and didn’t wake up until 9. Am trying to get at least eight hours sleep every night.”
The following day the Steering committee met in the morning, the railroad presidents, unbending, left for their various headquarters to prepare for the strike, and that night (Sunday) the president did an unprecedented thing. It was a stormy night, the rain descending in a torrent, and the Finance committee was at work in the room in the basement of the capitol. Suddenly the capitol police, who had deserted the entrances to the capitol for their own room in the basement, were startled by the appearance of the president at their door. He had left the White House in his machine in the storm in search of Senator Kern. The senator was summoned from the committee room, and in the gloomy basement corridors the president and the senator began a conference which ended in the president’s room off the senate chamber after a janitor had been found to open the door. It was that night that President Wilson announced that he would hold the congress in session until the needed railroad legislation was enacted.
On Monday morning the conference of the president with senators took place in Kern’s private room, 249 Senate building. A second conference was held in the same room during the crisis—a history-making conference—at which the president’s line of action was outlined and adopted. The needed legislation was enacted on September 2, the country was spared the most disastrous industrial conflict in its history, and the country will not soon forget the remarkable indifference of the railroad presidents to the public’s interest. Throughout this crisis Senator Kern played a more important part than appeared upon the surface. His popularity with organized labor made it possible for him to bring some influence to bear upon their attitude, and he was kept in touch with all the conferences of the men through reports submitted to him after each meeting by men participating in them.
During the last two years and more of his leadership Senator Kern was greatly concerned with the international situation as it related to the world war. He hated war. He understood the frightful meaning of the struggle should conditions force us in. While not a member of the committee on Foreign Relations, he was in the confidence of the president and knew of the conditions that were tending to make war inevitable to a self-respecting people. So passionately was he opposed to war that he had little patience with Americans on pleasure bent insisting on traveling unnecessarily—through the war zone. He recognized their legal right to do so but was intolerant of their indifference to the possible effect upon the peace of a hundred million people. And yet he supported every move made by the president as justified by the insane policy of Berlin. “The condition is hell,” he wrote a friend in January, 1916. “The cyclone may hit us within a few weeks. Nothing short of a miracle can stop it. I have been up against some pretty knotty propositions, but nothing like this.”
On February 21, 1916, the president called into conference at the White House Senator Kern, Senator Stone, chairman of the Foreign Relations committee of the senate, and Representative Flood, chairman of the Foreign Relations committee of the house—a conference prolific of endless speculation and portentous in its meaning, in which, according to The Literary Digest, he announced that he would “prolong negotiations with Germany no longer if the coming communication from Berlin fails to meet the views of the United States.” That crisis passed with the acceptance by Germany of the American view—an acceptance that was to be repudiated by Chancellor von Hollweg a year later with the remarkable explanation that at the time the promise was made in regard to ruthless submarine warfare Germany was not in position to refuse. During the short session of December, 1916-March, 1917, the atmosphere of Washington was charged with electricity. The discovery of the Zimmerman plot in Mexico and the repudiation of the submarine pledge left little ground on which to predicate a hope for peace. At the capitol something was expected to happen at any moment. When the president asked the congress for authorization to arm merchantmen Senator Kern supported the authorization, and the end of his leadership, and of his senatorial career, came at an hour when we could already hear from afar the thunder of the guns.
During the four years of his leadership Senator Kern was thrown into intimate contact with members of the cabinet who were interested in administration measures affecting their departments. His relations with Mr. Bryan continued to be cordial and close, and while he frequently consulted with him on party policy, his official relations with the secretary of state were not so important as with other members of the cabinet. In the nature of things he was more frequently called into consultation by Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo than by any others. With the tariff bill, the currency bill and the ship purchase bill, three of the most important administration measures, the head of the treasury department was deeply concerned. In the course of innumerable conferences Kern formed a high opinion of McAdoo’s statesmanship and capacity for leadership, and the mutual nature of the appreciation is manifest in the letter from Mr. McAdoo, now before me, in which he says:
“John W. Kern served as Democratic leader of the senate during a period when some of the most important legislation in the history of the country was enacted into law. With the people’s interest ever uppermost in his mind, he marshaled the forces of his party with infinite patience and tact, and always with self-effacement. He was loved and respected by his colleagues, regardless of party, and always possessed the confidence of the public and the administration. He was a patriot and citizen of sterling worth, and the Democratic party had in him an able, genuine and genial leader.”
After Bryan and McAdoo, his most intimate relations were with Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson. There was much in common between the secretary of the navy and the senate leader. Their friendship long antedated the triumph of the party. The genuine democracy, the sincerity and simplicity of manner, and the high moral character of Daniels made him peculiarly attractive to Kern; and during the time that the sinister special interests were busy with their propaganda of belittlement of the secretary, when Kern was cognizant of the wonderful record he was making, he took occasion several times to protest from the senate floor. The senator’s estimate has been so overwhelmingly vindicated by events since the United States entered the war that nothing need to be said of the viciousness of the assaults.
It was inevitable, of course, that Kern should have been intimately identified with Secretary Wilson. No member of the senate was so wholeheartedly in harmony with the labor movement or with the policies that the labor department espoused. It will one day be recognized as fortunate that the senate leader during the first days of this department was not only friendly but aggressively so. It did not require more than an occasional hour in the gallery to observe at times a distinct feeling of hostility to the new department, which was not confined by any means to the Republican side of the chamber. This was observable in the matter of appropriations to carry on its work. Kern was ever alert to protect it against injustice and ever ready to actively co-operate with Secretary Wilson in all his plans.
While not thrown into such frequent contact with Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, he looked upon him as one of the strongest men in the administration, whose uncompromising progressivism was one of the party’s strongest assets, and this feeling was warmly reciprocated by Lane.
Thus, dedicating himself and all his energy to helping put through a progressive program of which he had dreamed for many years, working with administration leaders for whom he had not only admiration but affection, he was happy to serve, to efface himself in serving, and to find his reward in the achievements.