IV
By the middle of September Mr. Kern’s itinerary had been made out by the national committee and called for extensive campaigning, especially in the east and south. There had been rumblings through the press of some apathy in the southern states, and while there was no danger of losing the electoral votes of this section, it was thought but the part of deserved courtesy to send the vice-presidential nominee through the south. The middle of September found him addressing a great throng at the state fair at Louisville, where he carefully refrained from any expression of a partisan nature; two days later he was in Chicago with Mr. Bryan, and on the 19th he began his speaking tour of the south. This took him first into Maryland. It was while here that the unfortunate Haskell episode, which occasioned such concern and embarrassment to leading Democrats, occurred. The charge that the treasurer of the Democratic national committee had some sort of connections with the Standard Oil Company, had been taken up by President Roosevelt with the view to convincing the people of the insincerity, if not dishonesty, of the Democratic candidates in the matter of campaign contributions. There was enough fire to make much smoke with the careful handling of an astute politician like Mr. Roosevelt using his high office as a base of operations. The publicity-before-the-election policy of Bryan and Kern was causing Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt no end of trouble, and the attempt of the former, strangely backed by the latter, to convince the people that a program of publicity-after-the-election would do quite as well was not making a favorable impression. Thus the Haskell incident was worked to the limit of its possibilities. At Elliott City, Md., Mr. Kern took notice of the president’s contribution to the campaign concerning the Haskell matter, charging him with using it in an effort to muddy the waters, and ridiculing his pretensions as a reformer. From Maryland he was forced to jump to Mansfield, Ohio, to formally open the campaign in that state with former Gov. James E. Campbell, where he discussed the tariff and trusts and facetiously referred to the Foraker-Taft-Roosevelt Kilkenny cat fight. Five days later he met his opponent for the first time at the Auditorium Annex in Chicago. Learning that Mr. Sherman was in the hotel, he expressed a desire to Senator Smith, of Michigan, to meet him. The senator called the Republican nominee from his room and the meeting took place in the lobby, to the delight of the newspaper men. This was the beginning of a warm personal friendship between two men whose political opinions were as divergent as it was possible for them to be.
From Chicago Mr. Kern plunged into the south, making his first speeches in Alabama. All the Kern meetings in the south were remarkable demonstrations. His meeting at Birmingham was a huge success. On his way from this industrial capital of Alabama to Atlanta he spoke for ten minutes to the mill hands at Anniston. These were the men to whom he made a strong appeal.
At Macon, Ga., when his train drew into the station he found a cheering crowd to greet him and the meeting in the evening was one of the most rousing he addressed during the campaign. Here he took occasion to reply vigorously to the attacks of Mr. Bryan’s enemies on the ground that he was “unsafe.”
His meeting at Asheville, N. C., in early October, was one of the stirring old-fashioned sort, the greatest political meeting that had been held there since 1896. A picturesque touch was given to this demonstration by several hundred mountaineers riding into town from miles around on mules. Here he was introduced by former Governor Glenn and followed by the brilliant James Hamilton Lewis.
Having in two weeks spoken in Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, he closed this part of his canvass, hoarse from a cold and from over-use of the voice at a great meeting at Huntington, W. Va., on October 10, and on the following day he reached his home in Indianapolis.
Here a great trouble awaited him. John Kern, Jr., had been stricken with that most distressing of maladies, infantile paralysis. During the next three days the candidate spent every moment possible at the bedside of his stricken boy, but the 14th of October found him engaged in strenuous campaigning in New Jersey. In the afternoon he spoke to the business men in Elizabeth, and at night to two remarkable meetings at Newark and Jersey City. At the former meeting the meeting was preceded by an old-fashioned parade with marching clubs, and the faithful in automobiles, the streets aglare from the red lights carried by the marchers, and by occasional bonfires along the streets. From Newark he was hurried to Jersey City, where he was greeted with a great crowd at Phœnix hall. It was at this latter meeting that he attacked the source of some great fortunes. Referring to the comment of Judge Taft that one way to reduce swollen fortunes would be for the possessors to give generously, Kern said that “Judge Taft advocates the pillaging of the people and trusting to the generosity of the pillager to pay back some of the ill-gotten riches.”
On the following day the candidate spoke at Tammany Hall in New York city, where his entrance was the signal for an ovation which was repeated a moment later when Lieutenant-Governor Chandler, the nominee for governor, ascended the platform and clasped the hand of the vice-presidential nominee. Mr. Kern’s speech here in the great financial center of the country was significant of his unwillingness to in any way compromise on his progressive principles for the possible effect in New York city.
In all his speeches on his eastern tour Mr. Kern made a special plea to the laboring classes, for upon these he predicated his sole hope of carrying New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. At Bridgeport, Conn., he addressed his remarks exclusively to these.
On the 19th of October he went to Utica, the home city of Mr. Sherman, his Republican opponent. Here, to his surprise, he was given one of the most remarkable welcomes of his tour. Knowing of Mr. Sherman’s wonderful hold on the affections of his fellow citizens he was startled at the warmth of the greeting until he learned that his opponent had wired a request to his own followers to join in the general welcome. As he stepped upon the platform to face a great audience he was handed a personal telegram of welcome from Sherman, then touring the west. This was a touch that Kern could appreciate, for it smacked of himself, and his opening remarks were in a happy vein as he referred to the incident. His speech here was an attack upon the great trusts and on swollen fortunes made possible by special legislation. It was here he said that “the spending on one dinner by the ultra-rich of sufficient to feed a million starving men is doing more to foster socialism and anarchism than all the socialistic and anarchistic propaganda.”
If Utica was to be remembered by him as the scene of a pleasing act of chivalric courtesy, it was also to be associated with the most painful shock of the campaign. It was here that a telegram reached him announcing the serious condition of young John and summoning him to the bedside. He immediately canceled all engagements and left for Indianapolis. Reaching home in the early morning, worn with fatigue of travel and speaking, he took up his vigil by the sick boy’s bed, scarcely leaving his side. The next few days found the vice-presidential nominee in the sick room. On October 26th he arranged to keep in constant touch with his home, and left for a week of strenuous campaigning in Indiana. By using steam train, interurbans and automobiles he was able to cover the state from the river to the lake making many speeches each day. On the Friday night before the election he spoke to the people of Indianapolis at a great meeting at Tomlinson hall. During the days immediately preceding Andrew Carnegie had gravely announced his adherence to the cause of Taft and Protection, and this announcement, which was unnecessary, was followed by one equally unnecessary from John D. Rockefeller to the same effect. These announcements appealed to Mr. Kern’s sense of humor, and he discussed them with biting sarcasm.
Mr. Kern’s close of his Indiana campaign at Evansville on Saturday night was not to mark the end of his labors. On the insistence of the national committee he was hurried into northern Ohio for a number of speeches on the day before the election, and after a meteoric rush through numerous towns he spoke his last word at night at an important meeting at Toledo.
But as he turned toward home that night it was not of the battle of ballots on the morrow that he was thinking.