“‘Good-bye; I am going down to the sanatorium at Asheville to take a post-graduate course.’
“I was inexpressibly shocked a few days later to learn that his spirit had winged its flight to the blessed Summerland.”
IX
After Mr. Ludlow no newspaper man was thrown into such frequent contact in the discharge of professional duties with Senator Kern as William H. Blodgett, who has been for so many years the political writer of The Indianapolis News. In campaign after campaign he has been assigned by his paper to cover the tours of the party leaders, and has reported all the conventions, state and national, for an equal period. He made one of the “Kern party” on practically every important tour that Kern made during the last eighteen years of his career. Mr. Blodgett’s reminiscences throw an interesting side light on the character of the senator:
“When John W. Kern answered the final call there passed out of the lives of the newspaper fraternity one with whom they were always bound by a strong chain with links of admiration, respect, honor and friendship. To them it was not the United States senator who died. It was the man whose soul had gone away; and while the newspaper men may remember for a time the public acts of John W. Kern as United States senator, so long as they live they will never forget his personal attributes, and his kind and courteous treatment of them; and the cold grave where he lies can never chill the steadfast, kindly and unfaltering friendship the men and women of the press bore him—a friendship that can not be calculated.
“It is doubtful if there is a public man between whom and the newspaper fraternity there were so many confidences. He trusted them, and they believed in him, even if they did not at all times agree with his political policies. The political writers were always pleased when they were assigned to ‘cover’ John Kern. He was the best ‘copy’ in the United States, and day or night he was always good for a story. Without journalistic experience himself, he knew just what kind of news the public wanted. He always had his ear to the ground, and many a good story for which the correspondent received a telegram of thanks from his managing editor was really worked out by Mr. Kern. He had no grades or classes among his newspaper friends—the small town reporter looked just as big to him as did the staff man from the metropolitan dailies, and he would go just as far to help the small town reporter as he would to assist the staff ‘star.’ My acquaintance with Senator Kern began long years ago when I was a small town reporter. In a particular town that need not be named a young society man had been arrested, for what no one knew. The arrest was very quietly made by Ed Rathbone, who figured years afterward in Cuban affairs, and Rathbone tried to slip his prisoner out of town, but the local reporters caught them at the railway station. With considerable curtness he refused to talk with the reporters. A man carefully dressed, and with a pleasant smile, standing near by turned to Rathbone:
“‘Ed,’ said he, ‘there is no reason why these boys shouldn’t have this item (that was before ‘items’ became dignified as ‘stories’). ‘It is in their territory and it will be interesting to the readers of their papers, and anyhow it will come out as soon as you get to Indianapolis and these boys will be scooped.’
“‘All right, John, you can tell them,’ replied Rathbone, walking away.
“‘Well, boys,’ as we gathered around him, ‘this is what it is all about’—and sitting on a baggage truck the stranger (I can see him now as plainly as I did then more than thirty years ago) he told us the story.
“‘Who are you, and what part in this affair do you take?’ one of our party asked.