“We are now having delightful weather, good roads, and lots of fun. The society in Kokomo is much better than it used to be, and is such that a man who mingles with it much inevitably enjoys himself. I have renewed my old acquaintance with the ladies, and yesterday two of them, Misses Whenett and Hazzard, came up and spent an hour in sweet communion with me in my office. I have an invitation to call on both of them and will certainly avail myself thereof. Although my practice is not so lucrative as I could desire, it is much better than I anticipated when I commenced. I have helped try two cases in the circuit court, three in the mayor’s court, and am doing a good business in collecting. I am at least making a very comfortable living. I find that I am somewhat deficient in the practical part of the law, but by hard study and close observation will remedy that before a great while. I am convinced that Kokomo is the best opening for a young man in the west. There is a vast amount of litigation in the county and but comparatively few lawyers. The only trouble I have here is that there is a disposition on the part of some young men in this town to make my office their headquarters. There is one of these d—d lazy hounds sitting here now—making himself more at home than I do. If he doesn’t leave in fifteen minutes I will order him out. The initials of this name are X-Y-Z—too trifling to pound sand.... That young man I spoke of a moment ago has just taken his leave. Darn his infernal loafing carcass. He didn’t receive much comfort this morning....”
The reference to the disposition of young men to make his office their headquarters probably reflects an indignation he did not really feel. From the moment he opened an office in Kokomo he became the idol of the younger element, and his popularity with “the boys” was to be invaluable in establishing his leadership in politics and his popularity at the bar, but to carry with it disadvantages due to the conviviality of the town and times. It was before the days of clubs, and during the first ten years of his practice his office was made to serve as a club for the younger element, young lawyers, doctors, and others with no such fixed means of support. Here in the evening and on Sunday afternoons the clan regularly gathered to solve the problems of society, indulge in chat, and games. Always a social being, young Kern enjoyed these afternoons and evenings, and friendships were made on these occasions that remained steadfast through life.
From the moment he opened an office the young lawyer was remarkably successful. He was generally looked upon by the people of Howard county as a genius. In eloquence before a jury he surpassed the older members of the bar. And the winsome geniality of his personality extended his acquaintance and increased his popularity. He was followed about by groups of young friends and the older element not only conceded him to be rarely gifted, but gave him every possible encouragement. The town was not so large that the proceedings of the courts were not the subjects of conversation and the lawyer, especially if young, who could make juries laugh and cry, and play pranks on court and bar, and get verdicts, became something of a hero. During the first year or two the most of his cases were tried in the justice of the peace courts, which were then far more important than they are to-day. Here the race went to the man who knew human nature, possessed an eloquent tongue, a quick resourceful mind, and plenty of assurance. Having in mind this period of his career, C. C. Shirley, at one time a member of the law firm of former United States Attorney-General Miller at Indianapolis, but previous to that a member of the Howard bar, writes:
“Instinctively I knew him then as one who had been touched with the fires of genius. I think every one who knew him at that time looked upon him as strangely gifted, although some of those who recognize his unusual gifts were inclined to poohpooh their importance. They spoke of him as the ‘boy wonder,’ the ‘infant prodigy,’ etc., and one particular characterization I heard when I was a small boy, which has stuck in my memory, I recall. Kern had just been admitted to the bar and had made an argument in a jury case which was highly praised and caused much comment among those who knew him well and naturally were proud of his quick success as a lawyer. I don’t know that the case itself was of much importance, but it was of a character to furnish a good vehicle. It was a neighborhood sensation. The particular note of derogation, I recall, was the remark of a village wiseacre to this effect, ‘Oh, John Kern is just like a wasp—bigger when he was born than he will ever be again.’ Rather a fine tribute, after all, although unintentional and unconscious, since it shows that even then skeptics had observed that he was not at all like a boy of twenty—possibly twenty-one, but not more. As for myself, I looked upon him as already a great man and never missed a chance to hear him speak, either on public occasions like old settlers’ meetings, at which he was often heard, or in neighborhood lawsuits before justices of the peace, which was the only forum I then had a chance to visit.
“The interests there involved now seem pitifully trivial, but they often meant almost life and death to the litigants—the family cow—or the chattel mortgaged cook stove, or the month’s wages. And on just such occasions as these, when humor or pathos were so closely blended, Kern, at that time, was facile princeps among the lawyers of the county, though he was barely of age. I know the impression he made on me was that his client was always right and much wronged by the highly reprehensible persons on the other side.... I learned that his wonderful skill in marshaling the facts and circumstances, added to his real genius for pathos, ridicule and invective, when these weapons could be used to advantage, were often quite as much to be feared as the merits of his case. He knew when to employ these weapons and never made the mistake so frequently observed of resorting to either unless there was something in the case which made it certain he would ‘get away with it.’ He avoided the obvious resort to such expedients—indeed he never seemed to employ them at all. This is what made him so effective when he did use them.”
That with all his precocity he was still essentially a boy during the early days of his practice is illustrated in a story affecting Rawson Vaile, a leader of the bar, who had been editor of the Indianapolis Journal before the civil war. Mr. Vaile was a polished gentleman, an Amherst graduate, something of an exotic for the time and place, who bore himself with great dignity, dressed immaculately, and always wore a silk hat. One day in court—the court room crowded with Kern’s young followers—while the young lawyer was in the midst of an argument to the court, he observed on the table before him the silk tie of the opposing attorney. Simulating much excitement, he brought his clenched fist down upon Vaile’s cherished hat with such force as to mash it completely. The young men in the court room who knew that it was not accidental, but a carefully planned diversion for their benefit, roared their approval, and so great was the indignation of the court that but for the splendid acting of Kern in assuring the court of the accidental nature of the incident he would have been fined for contempt.
In the little cases in the squire’s courts he fought as stubbornly as he ever did in later life in the federal courts of the country. One case—a suit in replevin over a red shawl—is still remembered because the tenacity of the boy lawyer cost the defendant $700 before the case was closed. Before he had been in practice a year, if he was not the ablest lawyer at the Howard bar, he was easily, among all the lawyers, the idol of the multitude.
II
During the first year or two at the bar Kern was not giving his attention wholly to the practice of his profession. In less than a year he had taken his position among the political leaders of the community, and from that time on during his fifteen years in Kokomo his political and professional careers were so interwoven, and he distinguished himself to such a degree in both, that I shall, for the sake of continuity, treat of his political activities in a separate chapter. Even politics and the law did not consume all his time. As we have seen in his letters to Morrow, he had taken a keen interest in the “feminines” from the moment of his arrival in Kokomo. This interest soon centered on Anna Hazzard, daughter of a well-to-do business man of the community. The nature of his wooing is indicated in an incident still remembered. On the occasion of a Sunday school picnic given by the Baptist church of his native village, he drove with Miss Hazzard to Alto, and finding a big cake offered for sale to the highest bidder, he determined that the prize should go to his partner of the evening. The contest was a lively one, but the young lawyer met all competitors with a raise, and the result was that he secured the cake for the neat sum of $30.