IX
Senator Kern in opening the debate on the “Kern resolution” on May 9th asked that “this investigation proceed that the full light may be let in on this foul spot and that all the facts bearing on these questions may be brought out to the end that wrongs, if they exist, may be righted, and that any men who are unjustly accused may be vindicated.”
Five days went by before the resolution was again considered by the senate. In the meanwhile the country was awakening to the significance of the fight and Kern was able to present scores of letters, telegrams, petitions from miners of West Virginia and elsewhere, and a striking telegram from the victims of militarism then held in the jail at Clarksburg, West Virginia, “stripped of constitutional rights, denied a jury trial, forced to face a drumhead court martial, deprived of their citizenship, reduced to subjects and thrown into jail.” This resulted in the renewal of the discussion and Senator Kern said:
“I had a telegram the other day from a leader of Socialism denunciatory of these conditions. When I showed it to a senator here he deprecated the idea that there was such relationship between me and that man that he would feel free to telegraph me. Men are being imprisoned in West Virginia to-day because they are Socialists; newspapers are being suppressed because they teach the doctrines of Socialism; men are discharged from mines, according to the testimony taken before the military commission, because they vote the Socialist ticket and because they belong to a labor union; and while the doctrine of judicial recall gains favor with the people whose rights are stricken down by unjust decisions, so do the forces of Socialism multiply in such breeding grounds as those in parts of West Virginia, with special privilege on one hand eating out the substance of the people, and with judges setting aside constitutional safeguards to the end that the people may be oppressed and denied rights for which their fathers fought and died.
“Socialism has grown in this country until more than a million men cast their votes for the Socialist ticket at the last election. The fire of Socialism is fed by such fuel as this West Virginia decision, and the lawless action there of men charged with the execution of the laws. Socialism grows and will grow in exact proportion as wrongdoing is countenanced and upheld, not only by the strong legislative forces of the country, but especially when they are backed up by the judicial arm of the government.
“Senators, these million men who voted the Socialist ticket last November are the men who ought to be full of that kind of patriotism in time of war that would impel them to go out and walk on the uttermost ridge of battle, to peril their lives in defense of their country and their country’s flag because they love their country, because they venerate the laws of the land.
“This great body of a million or more men whose loyalty you question, and the millions more who make up the organized labor forces of the land, and who are not yet Socialists, will love their country and its flag if you will permit them, and not drive them away by making them constantly realize that they can not expect fair treatment either in the administration of the law by executive officers or in the construction and enforcement of law by the courts.
“If the time comes—we all pray it may be averted—when the integrity of this nation is assailed, either from within or from without—if the time comes when the American Republic is brought face to face with the marching armies of the nations beyond the sea, we will need those million of men, for they are men that toil with their hands. They have strong arms. They are the same type of men as that splendid Army of the Republic fifty years ago who won for themselves imperishable renown by their sacrifices in behalf of the Union and the flag.
“Do you make good citizens of men by denying them their rights? Do you command the respect and the patriotism of the toilers of this land by turning them away when they come into this great tribunal and simply ask that the light be turned on, to the end that the people may know as to whether or not God reigns and the Constitution still lives, and whether they and their kind are to be despoiled of their heritage of liberty?
“For a man to be a loyal, good citizen of this country he must love his country. Can you ask him to love his country and be true to her traditions and institutions when in his heart of hearts he knows that in this land and beneath its flag there is a law for him which is not enforced against others, and that he can no longer appeal to the courts for the enforcement of his constitutional rights?”
Strong support was given the resolution by Hollis of New Hampshire, Borah, Kenyon, Martine, but it was left to Root to brush aside the technicalities and precedents and insist that the vital thing involved was the preservation of American institutions. The fight against the resolution finally resolved itself into the proposition proposed and championed by Bacon to strike out the clause providing for an investigation into whether or not “citizens of the United States have been arrested, tried and convicted contrary to or in violation of the constitution and the laws of the United States.” It should be said in justice to Bacon that he was as forcible as any in his condemnation of the oppression of the miners, and favored the investigation with the elimination of the fourth clause. His amendment, however, was defeated by a vote of 59 to 10, and the resolution, as finally shaped by the committee on Education and Labor was agreed to without a record vote. This differed from the original resolution in that it broadened the scope of the investigation to include an inquiry into agreements and combinations contrary to the laws of the country.
Thus for the first time in the history of the senate in a fight involving a contest between capital and labor the workers won. The leadership of Kern was not “repudiated” as newspapers antagonistic to him, counting their chickens before they were hatched, had framed their headlines to read. The next best thing was done—as little was said about his triumph as possible.