IV
It is significant of his personal popularity with his colleagues that after four years of the most trying, grinding legislative achievement in the history of the republic, he carried from the chamber at the close the confidence and affection of the men with whom he wrought.
This was due in large part to his infinite patience and never-failing tact. He never assumed the rôle of a dictator. It would have been repugnant to his nature, and would have outraged his sense of the proprieties. Had he, or any one else undertaken to lead as Aldrich led for the opposition so many years, he would have invited an inevitable revolt. He carried his points by his insistent pursuasiveness. It was much easier for his colleagues to conform with his wishes than to run counter to them.
I am indebted to Senator Charles S. Thomas, one of the keenest intellects in the senate, for an appraisement of his leadership from the viewpoint of his fellow senators:
“Senator Kern was the most kindly, efficient and practical of men, and an ideal leader for a majority just coming into control of a great body like the senate, after an exile of twenty years. No other member of that majority could, in my judgment, have done the work so well and so satisfactorily as Senator Kern; hence his unanimous selection for that position was inevitable when the sixty-third congress was organized.
“The senate was composed in the main of members from the southern states, with a large contingent of new men from the north and west, having comparatively little legislative experience, but all eager to accomplish the legislation promised the people by the national Democracy. This desire very naturally aroused ambitions for chairmanships and other places of distinction upon the great committees, threatening rivalries and possible conflict that might prove dangerous to the very slight majority then existing. These differences were adjusted by Senator Kern after many conferences, some of them presenting difficult situations, and some apparently incapable of solution. The senator’s judgment of men, his methods of appeal and his wonderful tact in dealing with his associates enabled him in the course of ten or fifteen days to report a plan of organization absolutely satisfactory to all of his associates with a solitary exception. Even that exception finally gave way to Senator Kern’s resourceful, courteous and generous methods of treatment. I think it can be said with perfect truth that the enactment of the great program of reform legislation by the sixty-third congress was due as much to Senator Kern’s splendid leadership as to any other single influence. An epitaph to that effect should be written upon his monument.”
To former Senator James A. O’Gorman of New York, for whom Kern had a feeling of admiration and affection, I am indebted for an estimate which emphasizes other points that entered into the making of his leadership efficient:
“My relations with Senator Kern were close and familiar during the four years that he was chairman of the Democratic caucus. This position carried with it the Democratic leadership of the senate. During this period I was a member of the Democratic Steering committee, of which Senator Kern was chairman. I entered the senate with him on April 5, 1911, and his selection as Democratic leader in 1913, after two years’ service in the senate, was a testimonial of the great respect in which he was then held by his colleagues. His upright character, his recognized ability and his attractive personality had already given him a strong hold upon their esteem. At our conferences, which were frequent, he was wise and resourceful in suggestion. On these occasions he invited the freest discussion of legislative plans and policies, and was always candid, sympathetic, conciliatory and helpful.
“He had a clear and strong mind, a sound judgment, an unbending integrity, a comprehensive knowledge of our constitution and laws, and a power of laborious application that enabled him to render valuable and efficient public service. Patriotism, honor and loyalty to his friends were his eminent characteristics. He was a strong partisan, but there was a kindliness about him that turned aside all feelings of ill will or animosity. He was sociable and companionable in the intercourse of life, and in his hours of recreation in Washington he was frequently the center of a group of devoted and admiring friends, who were attracted to him by those qualities of mind and heart which in earlier days won him recognition among the people of his native state, which he represented so faithfully and efficiently in the senate of the United States from 1911 to 1917.”
Senator O’Gorman’s reference to his partisanship and “the kindliness which turned aside all feelings of ill will or animosity” suggests the fact that he was personally popular with the most partisan Republicans of the senate. It would have been difficult to have found two more intense partisans than Kern, and Senator Gallenger of New Hampshire, who was the Republican leader, but nothing ever occurred to mar their cordial intercourse.
His self-effacement, his innate modesty, his repugnance to the pose, the fact that his name is not attached to any of the most important legislative measures of the administration, and that for the sake of facilitating the advancement of the program he consumed no time in speeches, may combine to rob him of the credit for the part he played in the general history of the four eventful years, but from the president and his cabinet down through the members of the congress there will never be any other estimate upon his leadership than that it was splendidly efficient.
The relations between Senator Kern and Senator Willard Saulsbury of Delaware, president pro tempore of the senate, were affectionate, and the latter’s estimate of Kern is of special interest:
“I shall never think of Senator Kern except with the affection implied in the nickname I gave him soon after we became acquainted, ‘Uncle John.’ We sat at the same table for hours each day practically from April until October, 1913, while the Democrats were preparing with great labor the Underwood-Simmons tariff bill. It was the first time for many years that great responsibilities had been placed upon our party organization. Senator Kern was unanimously chosen the Democratic leader of the senate after serving in that body for only two years. In his position as Democratic leader and chairman of the caucus he displayed great ability and tact in handling a majority of senators composed of men whose opinions in some cases differed widely. Every one respected him and many of us loved him. We felt when he left the senate that the party to which he belonged and the country had met with an irreparable loss, and his death, coming so soon after his retirement, was felt by many of us as though he had indeed been to each of us an affectionate ‘Uncle John.’ Dignified, upright, able, I doubt if any one ever impressed himself upon his colleagues more favorably than he. He was called to the performance of high duties at a very critical time in the history of our country and performed them in accordance with the high traditions of the place he filled. Indiana has produced many statesmen of ability and high ideals, but none greater, as I believe, has she recognized among her honored sons than when ‘Uncle John’ came to the senate. The kindly, sweet and generous character influenced us all in our personal relations with each other, and when, as he occasionally did, he took a high, strong stand in favor of a given course, he carried us irresistibly to the conclusion desired.”
CHAPTER XVIII
The Last Battle
THE campaign in Indiana in 1916 was a cross between a comedy and a tragedy. A political battle had never before been so miserably mismanaged in the history of the state accustomed for half a century to fierce fights. By the middle of the summer the wiseacres of the east had lightly eliminated the state from their calculations and had busied themselves with plans for re-electing the president without the electoral vote of Indiana. The leaders at national headquarters predicated their pessimism concerning the state on the extensively advertised strength of the Republican state organization, and the unquestioned demoralization of the Democratic party in Marion county (Indianapolis). In the summer of 1915 Senator Kern had shared in this pessimism until he began his journeys out among the people throughout the state, and it was the common observation of veteran campaigners of conservative judgment that they had never in all their experience encountered among Democrats such enthusiasm for the president, or found among Republicans so many who were openly expressing their intention to vote the Democratic ticket. Comparing the state of feeling among the masses of the people with that prevalent during the campaign of 1904 preceding the overwhelming Republican landslide there was ample justification for the feeling that the state was ripe for a landslide to the Democrats. Where one Democrat declared his intention to vote for Roosevelt in 1904 there were twenty Republicans who were making no secret of their intention to vote for President Wilson in 1916. The sentiment was strong—all it needed was crystallization, organization, direction.
The state leaders, however, were discouraged from the beginning by the attitude of the national organization and the fear of German-American disaffection. The state organization was handicapped throughout by the lack of sufficient funds for ordinary organization purposes—and no hope of aid was held at any time by the national leaders. Throughout the summer months while the Democrats were marking time the Republicans were literally pouring money into Indiana, and this was being used with deadly effect in the work of organization and propaganda. A number of the wealthy Democrats of the state who had formerly contributed to the campaign fund were not in sympathy with the progressive and ameliatory policies of the Wilson administration. And the masses of the party were poor. In Indianapolis there were not among merchants in the shopping district half a dozen Democrats, and among the manufacturers an even smaller number. It was manifestly impossible for the Democrats to cope unaided with the wealthier Republicans of the state, energetically backed by the Republican national organization. The result was that the Democratic state organization was a shell. And the national organization refusing to recognize the responsibility of its own neglect used the inefficiency of the state organization as an excuse for turning its back on Indiana and pouring three times as much money into Pennsylvania and upper New York, where there was no possibility of winning, as would have been necessary to have placed the electoral vote of Indiana in the Democratic column.
But that was not the only blunder. Never in half a century have as few orators of national repute appeared upon the stump for the Democracy in the state of Hendricks, Voorhees and Kern. Mr. Bryan, who was probably worth ten thousand votes, and who had been the strongest figure on the stump in the state for twenty years, did not appear for a single speech. Ollie James, another prime favorite, was permitted to enter Indiana for two speeches. Two or three cabinet officers spoke once or twice. As far as speakers from the outside was concerned there was little to indicate to the casual observer that the old historic battle field was the scene of another struggle. And all the while the Republicans were pouring their most effective campaigners into the state. This was not satisfactory to the Indiana leaders, who made their protests against the neglect but without making the slightest impression.
To Senator Kern the most disheartening feature of the disposition to keep the best campaigners out of Indiana was his inability to secure the services of the more notable former leaders of the Progressive party, who were supporting the Democracy elsewhere. Late in the summer he had made an effort to impress upon Vance McCormick, the national chairman, the vital necessity of thus making an appeal on the strength of the progressive record of President Wilson to the erstwhile progressives. He had shown him that the Democratic vote in Indiana in 1912, when the state was carried by Wilson, was almost 100,000 short of the vote cast for Bryan in 1908, thus indicating that the majority of these had gone into the Progressive party. And he made it clear that the only hope of winning was to get these back and that it could only be done by fighting for them. At that time he exacted the promise that Francis J. Heney, Bainbridge Colby and other progressive orators would be sent into the progressive districts of the state, but the promise was not kept. To make it worse they were dated, advertised, and then withdrawn at the eleventh hour. Whatever may have been the reason the plain truth is that had the national organization deliberately designed to turn Indiana over to the Republicans, it could not have proceeded with more effectiveness than it did.
To make matters all the worse the session of congress had been prolonged into early September and the close found Senator Kern in a state of physical exhaustion and under the necessity of taking a brief rest before entering the campaign. He returned to Indiana after a short time at Kerncliffe on the day that Charles E. Hughes spoke in Indianapolis. At the hour the Republican presidential nominee was speaking in Tomlinson Hall, Senator Kern sat before an open grate at his home and discussed the possibilities of his last battle with the realization that it would require his utmost exertions. He was not unmindful of the fact that the opposition to his re-election was not to be confined to those enlisted under the Republican banner, but that he was to face a special fight upon himself. Among a certain class of politicians he had never been popular, and some of these were openly going about abusing him and talking combinations against him. The activities of these men were regularly reported to him, but owing to their insignificance he attached but little importance to their work. But there was another element of opposition the strength of which he recognized. This was composed of the so-called “respectable” men of the business world who distrusted him because of his progressive, humanitarian views of social justice, and hated him because of the fights he had made repeatedly for the working classes. The organization exposed in its perfidy by the Mulhall disclosures had its ramifications into Indianapolis especially, but throughout the state as well. These men were bitter in their opposition. While they were composed for the most part of Republicans, they had their Democratic allies. It was a combination of a bi-partisan nature of the representatives of the idea embodied in the association, created for the purpose of destroying organized labor and influencing legislation by the most sinister methods in favor of special privileges for the few and against remedial legislation for the many. And these men who had disliked him from the time he was in the state senate hated him all the more because of his fight against Lorimer, which was a fight against their system; for his fight against the tyranny of the coal barons of West Virginia, in favor of the Child Labor bill, the Seamen’s bill, the Eight-Hour Railroad bill. And all the venom thus engendered they poured forth in denunciations of the senator for having dared appear as the legal representative of the Structural Iron and Steel Workers when on trial in the federal court. As Kern sat before the fire the night that Hughes was speaking to a cold crowd down town, he was far from underestimating the capacity of these men for harm. They had always been his enemies—and he theirs. They hated his views on social justice and he despised theirs. And he knew that they would leave no stone unturned to encompass his defeat. With the heat of the blazing fireplace beating upon his cheeks the semblance of the glow of health that night he seemed fit for the fight. But it was an illusion of the flames. The next morning it was all too apparent in his haggard features and distressing cough that he was a sick man. And his failure to carry out the plans he had been meditating a long time was due to his physical inability to rise to the occasion.
Confronted by a powerful foe, aside from the Republican party organization, he was compelled to enter the campaign without a personal organization or the funds with which to create one. No politician in the state had such a large personal following among the rank and file, but this was an unorganized and undirected mass.
The one bright feature of his campaign was the quick and eager response of organized labor—a response spontaneous, unsolicited. One afternoon while in his office discussing with a prominent national leader of organized labor the necessity of reaching the coal fields with the story of his work on the West Virginia matter he had just expressed the hope that Mother Jones might be induced to enter the state when the telephone bell rang.
“This is Mother Jones,” said the voice at the other end, “may I see the senator?”
And twenty minutes later the wonderful old woman walked into the room with the announcement:
“When I was imprisoned, threatened with death, and needed a friend and none seemed near you saved my life. Now you are in a fight and I came to report. Send me where you will.”
It was in incidents like this that Kern found sufficient compensation for all the abuse that was lavished upon him by men of the type of Kirby of the Manufacturers’ Association.
At the state convention of the Federation of Labor this eighty-year-old woman appeared unexpectedly, aroused the delegates to the highest pitch of enthusiasm by her recital of Kern’s services to labor and herself, and brought every delegate to his feet with the demand that all who thought it the duty of union labor to fight for the senator’s re-election stand up. And this scene was not according to the program planned by a little coterie of enemies.
After this Mother Jones swept through the mining towns and camps of the state, arousing enthusiasm for Kern everywhere she went, and fervently urging her “boys” to put on the armor in his behalf. And that which she did was done by other representatives of labor of less note.
It was the idea of local campaign managers in the various counties to pack Senator Kern and Senator Taggart into automobiles and hurry them from meeting to meeting for short speeches during the day, closing in at night at the county seat with a great demonstration. The first week disclosed the impossibility of the plan as far as Kern was concerned, and very soon afterward Senator Taggart, a younger man, was forced to notify the managers that he could not stand up under the strain. Entering the campaign with a distressing cough, the first week increased his affliction, and from that time on he was in a hopelessly crippled condition. His physician urged him to retire from the stump, but he persisted, buoyed up by his enthusiasm for the cause, and impelled to do so by the realization that a personal fight was being made upon him. The result was pathetic. Leaving a sick bed he would brave the hardships of travel, the inclemency of the weather, to fill an engagement with the intention of speaking briefly, but the inspiration and enthusiasm of the crowd would lead him on to the full exertion of his strength, and after a day or so he would be forced to return to his bed. Thus through October he passed from the sick room to the stump and back again, all the while growing weaker and sustained alone by his power of will. His greatest meetings were probably held at Terre Haute and Fort Wayne, in both of which cities he was greeted by great crowds notwithstanding a downpour of rain, and at the former place he spoke in a great tent where men stood for two hours with their feet in water. Notwithstanding the personal fight that was being made upon him by the powerful interests he had antagonized, he refrained in his speeches from special references to his own services and confined himself to laudation of the achievements of the national administration and playful ridicule of Hughes. Even the bitter personal attacks upon him in this, his last battle, failed to embitter him, and his last political addresses were singularly free from vituperation or abuse.
He closed his campaign in the last political speech of his career, after forty-four years upon the stump, at Brookville—and herein hangs a tale illustrative of the sentimental strain that was strong in him. It had been his custom for years to close at the little town of Brookville, and early in the campaign he had promised to continue the policy. The speaking campaign in Indianapolis had been strangely neglected and it was not until the Saturday night before the election that plans had been made for the final appeal of the two senatorial candidates at Tomlinson Hall. It thus became necessary, if Kern were to speak in Indianapolis at all, that he cancel his engagement for Brookville, but to the importunities of his friends who urged upon him the importance of the Indianapolis engagement he gave an indignant denial. “Certainly not,” he snapped as though some discreditable thing had been proposed, “I have been closing the campaign at Brookville for years, and I don’t propose to disappoint those people.”
The result was that he did not speak in Indianapolis once during the campaign.
Handicapped by physical weakness, lack of means, want of personal organization, and pursued by a peculiarly venomous opposition which was not political but personal and born of his friendship for organized labor, he struggled through, preserving his cheerfulness and hopefulness to the end, receiving the personal insults of the tribe of Kirby in silence, and only retaliating with kindly references to his opponent. When early in the evening on the day of the election it became apparent that he had been defeated his first act was to congratulate his opponent, a life-long friend, and to pay him a personal compliment through the press.
I saw him the night following the election—a strikingly frail figure, a little sad but not too sad to smile and joke in his accustomed way, greatly disappointed but not so much so as to be embittered. After six years of the most strenuous service, yielding his strength ungrudgingly to the demands of his people, and vindicating the confidence of his supporters by attaining as commanding a position in the senate as was ever held by an Indiana senator, he now faced private life with equanimity, poor of purse, broken in health, and nearing three score years and ten.
His deepest concern that night was his failing health, and it was his intention when congress convened for the short session in December to resign the leadership and husband his strength. During the month of November he did not greatly improve and he returned to his post of duty in December in a serious condition.
CHAPTER XIX
The Closing of a Career
THE close of the campaign left Senator Kern in such a state of physical debility that he was fixed in the determination to withdraw from the duties and responsibilities of the leadership of his party in the senate with the view to conserving his health. From this he was dissuaded by party leaders and the opening of the short session of the sixty-fourth congress in December found him at his post as usual. The session promised to be a crowded one. In his message at the opening of the session President Wilson had insisted that the congress proceed to the immediate enactment of the supplementary legislation to the Eight-Hour Railroad bill pushed through in the early autumn to prevent the strike, and there was no certainty that this could be done without a prolonged contest on several points. The congress in response to popular clamor had provided for enormously increased expenditures for the army and navy, and now the problem of raising the revenue correspondingly was demanding attention. This promised to partake of the nature of a party contest as all revenue measures do. The historic importance of the session, however, was not foreshadowed, for on the December day in 1916 when the gavels fell there was little reason to assume that the nation was rushing toward war.
It is not my purpose to follow Senator Kern in the discharge of his duties as majority leader. These differed in no wise from those of the preceding years. But as the days went by and instead of improving in health he either made no progress toward recovery or seemed to be losing ground, he compromised with his sense of duty to the extent of spending less time in the stuffy senate chamber. In the afternoons when the senate had struck its routine pace he retired more and more frequently to his room at Congress Hall, or to the seclusion of his committee room on the gallery floor. His loss of voice immediately after the campaign, which might have been ascribed to over use, persisted with an ominous suggestion of a recurrence of the trouble which had driven him to Asheville ten years before. This, with his loss of weight and unhealthy color, caused him deep concern, which was not relieved by the necessity imposed by his lack of fortune of returning to his profession at the age of sixty-eight. Greatly weakened, he met all the obligations imposed upon him by his party associates and the administration uncomplainingly and gladly. While the irony of defeat had sunk deep, the life-long chivalry asserted itself in the generous praise of his successor, and if there was any bitterness in his soul it failed to find expression on his lips. Realizing that his political race was run, he failed to respond to unfriendly comments of his most virulent political enemies. Nothing could have been more perfect than his deportment in defeat.
Early in the session grounds for grave apprehension concerning our relations with Germany developed, and Senator Kern looked upon the probability of war with dread. Aside from the usual horrors of armed conflict, he keenly felt the situation in which the hundreds of thousands of Americans of German decent would find themselves should we be forced into the war by the mingled stubbornness, stupidity and perfidy of Berlin. When on that morning in January the word flashed over the capitol that Vice-President Marshall had received a note from President Wilson informing him of his desire to address the senate, Senator Kern was one of many who was depressed at the possibilities of the message. Contrary to custom, he had not been previously consulted by the president concerning his intentions, and neither had the chairman of the committee on Foreign Relations. The president had kept his own councils and the note to the vice-president but hinted at the general nature of the communication. That morning senators generally were prepared for something smacking of a preliminary to a war declaration. It was a solemn assemblage of senators that witnessed the entrance of Woodrow Wilson to the chamber, and a breathless audience both on the floor and in the galleries that listened to the remarkable peace plea, couched in the president’s characteristically beautiful English, read in a measured beautifully modulated voice. No one was more delighted than Senator Kern. But there was to be no peace, neither in Europe or for America, and as the session drew to a close, with no certainty that the congress would again meet for nine months, and with Germany persisting in her mad course with her submarines, the president again appeared, this time before both branches, with a request for congressional authorization for the arming of our merchant ships in self-defense. This request, made on February 26, did not reach the senate for discussion until March 1st, and the last three days of the session were days of excitement and bitterness born of the indisposition of some few senators to arm the president with the power he asked and in the way he asked it. The debate, which was not, as usually charged a fillibuster in the ordinary meaning of the term, in that none of the speeches of the “eleven wilful men” were of great length, was of significant duration to prevent a vote before the expiration of the congress at noon March 4th. Senator Kern, who favored the granting of the power, did not participate in the discussion, taking the position that the friends of the measure would serve it best by consuming no time in talk.
It was in the midst of this bitter battle, on March 3, that he delivered a brief valedictorian address which was a heart expression on the pain of parting from associations that had become dear to him. This, his last utterance in the senate of which he had been the leader for four years, called forth at least one tribute that he greatly cherished. He said:
“Mr. President, before taking leave of this body, I desire to take a very few moments in which to express partially my deep appreciation of the many kindnesses and courtesies shown me since I have been a member of the senate. It will be only a partial expression, for there are no words in which I can tell you fully of that which is in my mind and heart.
“I have no thought, sir, that my leavetaking is a matter of any great moment either to the country or the senate, for senators have come and gone since the foundation of the government, and the republic has survived the loss of the greatest and the best, but I feel that it may not be deemed inappropriate for me before leaving to try to tell you, not how greatly you will miss me, but rather how I will miss the association and companionship which has so enriched my life during the last six years.
“Mr. President, it will be with a sense of relief that I lay aside the burdens and responsibilities incident to the duties of a senator. My work here may not have been very effective, but for the last four years it has been hard, continuous and very earnest work, taxing heavily at times my health and strength, and I shall lay my armor by in happy anticipation of rest and the enjoyment of the delights of home life.
“My party associates here have twice conferred upon me the highest honor in their power to bestow and have given me generous and constant proofs of their hearty good will, and I can look back over the last four years and through the heated debates and exciting contests without being able to call to mind a single word or act on the part of any Republican senator indicating the slightest ill will.
“So, Mr. President, my chief, if not my only regret, in leaving this distinguished company is because it involves a separation from friends who have grown very dear to me. These friends, thank God, are on both sides of the center aisle; and the memory of these friendships will cheer and comfort me during the remaining years of my life.
“Mr. President, every man who engages in political or other contests hopes for success, and defeat under any circumstances is usually attended by feelings of disappointment if not humiliation; but the man who is not prepared to accept defeat with apparent cheerfulness and in a manly way would do well to avoid the arenas of political conflict.
“In my case the sting of defeat in the late election was greatly mitigated by the fact that my successful opponent is my neighbor, and more than a third of a century has been my warm personal friend; so that my pride in his promotion largely compensates for the natural regret at my own defeat. I stated after the election and repeat it in this presence, that if I had been permitted or required to choose a Republican successor I would, without hesitation, have named the Hon. Harry S. New. He is a splendid gentleman, a high-minded, patriotic American citizen who will wear the robes of office with modesty and dignity. It is a matter of very great satisfaction to me to know that the splendid commonwealth of Indiana will be represented by two of her native sons, who, I am sure, will serve their state and country with honor and distinction.
“In conclusion permit me to repeat that I shall leave here happy that I shall be free from burdens often onerous and oppressive, rich in the friendship of my fellow senators, which I shall always cherish as among my dearest possessions, sorrowing only because the companionships which have given me so much delight and so many hours of happiness must be severed.
“May God bless you, every one.”
Because of the sincerity with which he spoke, and the personal affection felt for him by the majority of senators of both parties he struck a chord which responded instantly when Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts rose on the Republican side of the center aisle. Nothing could have given greater pleasure to Senator Kern. While differing widely on most public questions of a political nature, the Massachusetts senator being a conservative Republican and Kern a radical Democrat, there was much in the character and career of the brilliant historian, orator and statesman that made a strong appeal to the Indiana senator. Aside from a personal fondness for the Republican leader, a profound admiration for his gifts, the career of Lodge in its continuity and security appealed to Kern as the ideal one for a public man. It was precisely the career he would have liked. This, a little side-light on Kern’s real nature: in the summer of 1915, after reading the last page of Lodge’s “Early Memories,” and expressing the hope that the author would continue his recollections through his congressional career, he laid the book down with the comment:
“I know of no man in public life whose career I envy more than that of Lodge.”
Senator Lodge said:
“Mr. President, among the trials, the cares, the labors, and sometimes the bitterness that public life brings there are rewards. They are neither so many nor so delightful as the outside world may suppose, but there are some very real rewards. One of them, the chiefest, perhaps, is to be found in the friendships and associations which men closely associated together as we are in this chamber are certain to form, but like most happinesses and rewards in this world, they have their inevitable penalty connected with them. The penalty comes in the severance of the friendships, by the partings that must occur. These partings come to us here every two years. They bring sorrow, not the ‘sweet sorrow’ of Shakespeare’s immortal lovers, but a very real sorrow which grows more serious and more grim as the years pass by and age advances.
“It is with a feeling of great sorrow that I—and I am sure that I express the sentiments of all other senators—find myself compelled to part with the senator from Indiana. He has been the official leader of his party during four years, a position which has put him in the front of conflict. I can only say that he has borne himself with fairness, with courtesy, with unvarying good temper to those opposed to him, and, Mr. President, wholly apart from that, I am sure that the feeling I am about to express is shared by all. We are losing a friend. He has been to me not only a very valued friend, but a very good friend, and it is sad for me to think that he is about to withdraw from the interests and activities we have so long shared together. His kindness, his good temper, and the generosity he has just shown in his cordial words with regard to his successor have endeared him to us all. It is hard to say ‘good bye,’ and I will not say it, but I will say that he goes back to private life carrying with him the affectionate regard of all those who have been associated with him here, quite as much of those who sit on this side of the aisle as of those who sit on the other side. He carries with him every good wish that we can give for his health, his happiness, and his peace of mind in the years to come.”
As soon as Senator Lodge resumed his seat Senator Hoke Smith of Georgia, secretary of the interior during the second Cleveland administration, rose on the Democratic side of the chamber.
“Mr. President,” he said, “it is not necessary for Democratic senators to tell Senator Kern, the senate and the country how much we esteem him and how much we will miss him.
“Just two years after he came here he was elected by his Democratic associates their leader. Two years later he was again unanimously elected their leader.
“He has with great ability, with marked tact, with perfect fairness, and with uniform courtesy, served them as their leader and served with his associates as senator.
“We all honor him; yes, and he will always have our warmest love.”
Meanwhile Senator James E. Watson, the Republican senator from Indiana, who was out of the chamber at the time Senator Kern made his remarks, was notified by one of his colleagues and returned immediately to the chamber and, upon being recognized, spoke on behalf of the citizenship of Indiana, regardless of party affiliations. He said:
“Mr. President, I was out of the chamber when the news was brought to me that my distinguished colleague had uttered an address of farewell to the members of this body, with which he has been so long associated, and I felt that I could not let the opportunity pass without paying my tribute of respect to him as a man and as a citizen and as a neighbor.
“It is indeed a characteristic of the American people, and a most fortunate one, that in the midst of a great emergency like that which confronts us at this time, and an agitation almost international that seems to be centered here for the moment, we can even temporarily lay it aside to pay a tribute of respect to one who is about to depart from our midst. This shows, Mr. President, that after all, behind all political divisions, we are one in sentiment and one in aspirations, and one in patriotic purpose.
“Of the service of my colleague here I shall not speak, because you are more familiar with that than I am; and I only rise for the purpose of expressing the feeling of the people of Indiana for this distinguished Hoosier who is about to return to the body of her citizenship. As a senator, as reporter of the supreme court, as the candidate of his party twice for the governorship, as the candidate of his party for the vice-presidency, he has ever displayed those characteristics that have endeared him to the people of the state; and as you say farewell to him here, the people of Indiana bid him hail and welcome, because there he will be loved by many and admired by all.”
Senator Stone followed with a tribute to Kern’s “fine qualities of mind and heart, his manliness, his courtesy, his gentleness, his wisdom,” and added that “during my service here there has been no man who has gone out of the senate more beloved or whose absence will be more sincerely regretted.” And Senator Thomas of Colorado referred to the “testimonial of affection and esteem” which had been drawn up by the Democratic senators as “an earnest although an entirely inadequate expression of their love and affection.”
This testimonial was drawn up in the chamber of Vice-President Marshall on the vice-presidential stationery. This paper, bearing the signatures of fifty-two senators, and drawn up and signed in the midst of the excitement and acrimonies of the fight on the armed ship measure, follows:
THE VICE-PRESIDENT’S CHAMBER
WASHINGTON
March 3, 1917.
“We hereby desire to express to our good friend and Democratic colleague from Indiana,
Hon. John W. Kern,
our appreciation of his uniform courtesy, fairness and consideration for each and all of us during the whole time he has filled the position of leader of the Democratic majority in the senate and the affectionate regard we hold him, as well as our admiration for his ability, kindliness and attainments.”
On the same day his personal friend, Vice-President Marshall, sent Senator Kern a personal note which was all the more appreciated because of the genuineness of the friendship behind it:
THE VICE-PRESIDENT’S CHAMBER
WASHINGTON
3rd March, 1917.
“Dear John Kern: It is not as lawyer, statesman, senate leader that we say farewell. That were easy. But to say it as friend to friend, that is hard. May we say hail again to you often.
“Thos. R. Marshall.”
These tributes of affection and respect were all the more remarkable because of the conditions under which they were paid. The capitol was in a state of considerable excitement because of the bitterness of the fight being waged over the bill granting the president power to arm our merchant ships. The country was in ferment over the measure and little else was thought of in the senate. Many, indeed the great majority of senators, had taken their departure in peaceful days without comment from their colleagues from the floor. The exception in the case of Kern was due not only to the important part he had played during four years of remarkable legislative activity, and the even-tempered and conscientious manner in which he had met the onerous duties of leadership, but quite as much to personal qualities which had, through life, endeared him to those who knew him best. He was deeply moved by these impressive manifestations of regard, and particularly pleased with the generous and kindly attitude of the men he had politically opposed. This was accentuated a few days later by a personal letter from Senator Lodge saying that “in the midst of the excitement of that closing day I felt very strongly how unfinished and imperfect all that I said in regard to your leaving the senate necessarily was,” and reiterating his expression of regret.
Thus after forty-seven years of constant political activity, and many years of public service, Senator Kern passed to private life rarely honored by his colleagues in the senate, respected by his political opponents, regretted by the president and his cabinet, and trusted by the dominate political party of the nation of which he had been a potential leader in victory and defeat.