The life of John Worth Kern

by Claude G. Bowers

II

In the year 1870 the political services of the boy leader were not confined to preparing resolutions and making stirring speeches. He was the most potent factor in the establishment of a Democratic newspaper in Kokomo. The story of the origin of The Radical Democrat, which was to change its name later to The Kokomo Despatch and as such to take high rank among the party papers of the state, is intimately interwoven with the political history of Kern. In the spring of that year W. J. Turpin, anxious to establish a Democratic paper and in search of a location, was advised to turn his attention to Kokomo, and “for further information to write J. W. Kern.” He did write to the boy leader and the encouragement from Kern impelled him to make a personal investigation, and he went to Kokomo. A youth of precisely Kern’s age, twenty, and without a penny of capital, his project could have held forth little promise of a successful issue to one with less than Kern’s bubbling buoyancy and audacity. He has told the story of his conference with young Kern in some reminiscences published in later years.

“Mr. Kern was not yet one and twenty. He was literally slopping over with soul and life. Recent college triumphs had inspired him with a hope and confidence for the future. I recognized in him at once the uncaged Nubian lion of the community. Upon one point we were agreed—the capital was of but secondary and slight importance to the furtherance of our object. We closed, and from that moment began a fervent and unabating friendship.”

On the following day Kern accompanied Turpin on a canvass of the town for subscriptions, heading the list himself, and during the day procuring more than a hundred subscriptions. The Democrats were willing to take a risk and the Republicans could see no possible danger in the competition. The embryo editor thereupon plunged into the country townships with the view to increasing his circulation list, leaving with Kern the task of collecting enough real money to make a payment on an office. At length arrangements were made whereby each issue could be put out at a cost of $25, and a Democrat was persuaded to furnish office rent free. Such was the beginning of The Kokomo Despatch.

This, however, did not end Kern’s connection with the paper, for he appears by Turpin’s admission to have been a copious contributor to the editorial columns, and throughout the remainder of his residence in Kokomo he was charged at various times with plying his pen in the interest of the party and the paper. When the editor sold the paper in the late summer of the year of its birth to Doctor Henderson he acknowledged his indebtedness to Kern’s pen in the following tribute:

“John W. Kern has contributed much to the success of this enterprise. To him I shall ever feel under obligations, and I am also proud that the party in this county numbers among its young men one of so much earnestness and purity of purpose who promises to be truly a Defender of the Faith.”

Thus in his twentieth year he had established the reputation of being the most effective Democratic orator in the county, had made the most spectacular and brilliant campaign made by a Democrat in Howard in many years, given the Republicans their first real scare in a generation, won recognition as a leader of tact and judgment, and made possible the publication of a Democratic party organ in that wilderness of radical Republicanism.

III

In the spring of 1871 Kern’s growing popularity was attested by his election by the city council, composed of five Republicans and three Democrats, as city attorney—a position to which he was to be repeatedly re-elected by successive councils and without regard to the political complexion of that body. Although a strong partisan his winning personality exerted an influence beyond the party wall, and that generosity and geniality toward his political opponents which was to lead Senator Beveridge years later to pronounce him “the Bayard of the Hoosier Democracy” was even then pronounced.

In the Democratic county convention of that year he appears to have been a dominating factor. It was the year when thousands of old-fashioned Democrats found in party regularity a bitter hardship because of the nomination of Horace Greeley for the presidency. Even Voorhees in a speech acquiescing in the nomination acknowledged the bitterness of the pill. This lead to the appearance of a new Kokomo newspaper called The Liberal, with Kern’s name at the head of the editorial columns, and described by The Kokomo Tribune as “a lively little paper full of Democracy, Greeleyism, Hendrickism and what-you-call-it.” It does not appear from the newspapers of that year that he participated very actively in the speaking campaign, but he was evidently in the midst of things from the occasional references of the Republican paper to his activities. Thus in describing a Democratic rally The Tribune pictures him on horseback “riding along the procession urging cheers for Hendricks,” the nominee for governor; and at another Democratic meeting he is described as vehemently urging the unresponsive crowd to give “three cheers for Greeley” and to “go up-stairs and hear C. N. Pollard.”