The life of John Worth Kern

by Claude G. Bowers

By 1874 we find his position as the Democratic leader in Howard assured and as the sole representative of the county he was attending caucuses of the State Committee at Indianapolis. In the county convention of that year he was the general in command. The papers reported that out of the thirty-two motions made all were made by Kern but three. It had by this time come to be the custom to top off all county conventions in Howard with a ringing party exhortation from the boy leader, and in ’74 he was still harping on the necessity for “reform,” though now with special reference to the conditions in the court house. “Kern was then called for and spoke on the subject of reform,” wrote the editor of The Tribune, “If he had lived in the days of the Reformation he would have been the head and front of that movement. As a reformer Kern is a success.” It was in this campaign that he pounded the Republican machine of Kokomo with such vigor as to cause evident distress. The county officials had been obsessed with a mania for supplying their offices not only with the necessities but with all the luxuries obtainable. He brought all his withering power of ridicule to bear upon arm rests, paper weights, dusters, fancy stationery and numerous other articles deemed non-essential by the average Howard county farmer of that day, but his greatest scorn was reserved for the “McGill machine.” This was a new invention for clamping papers together, and it was Kern’s policy in addressing an audience in the country to dwell at great length and in awesome fashion upon the “McGill machine” until his farmer audience had conjured up a picture of something resembling in general outline a threshing machine, and then to spring the tiny machine upon them with the rather fancy price paid for it by the commissioners. He succeeded in making the “McGill machine” an issue in the campaign, the bone of hot contention, and every one who was not indignant over the purchase was laughing about it.

IV

The “paramount issue” in the campaign of 1876 was reform. It swept the country like a tidal wave. It made logical and inevitable the nomination of Samuel J. Tilden, the great reform governor of New York for the presidency by the Democrats. It played havoc with the ambitions of several worthy men in Indiana who had been guilty of petty extravagances in office but whose personal probity was no protection against the hysteria of the hour which pilloried them as unworthy of public favor and erased their names from the party tickets. It was the year that the Republicans thought they were disgracing Godlove S. Orth, as honorable a man as ever lived, by removing him from the head of their ticket when they were only shaming themselves; and the Democrats assumed that they were advertising their virtue by driving from their judicial ticket such honorable men and able jurists as Judges Buskirk, Downey and Pettit, when they were only exposing their weakness. There was, in those days, ample justification for the cry of reform, and we have seen that before he had attained his majority Mr. Kern had been strongly impressed with the necessity of it, but, like many good movements, it went to extremes, and we shall see that the young Kokomo leader shared in this weakness with many others.

We first find him active in ’76 in the county convention of Howard, where he was the dominating figure, and delivered what appears to have been a long and forceful speech on his favorite topic of reform. The Tribune merely quoted one sentence from this speech to the effect that “the Democracy disowns Ben Hill,” with the comment that both Hill and Kern would be at the St. Louis convention, “Hill as a big whale and Kern as a tadpole.” The spicy editor was also grateful for the length of the speech, which “gave the reporters plenty of time to do real work on really important matters;” and another comment on the convention was to the effect that “the following persons took prominent part in the convention: John W. Kern, K. W. Yern, K. J. Wern, J. Kern Worth, etc.” The same year Kern was recognized by the state Democracy by his selection for the secretaryship of the state convention at Indianapolis. It was a convention characterized by great enthusiasm. Party leaders addressed the throngs from the balconies of hotels, and The Indianapolis Journal, in describing this manifestation of earnestness and enthusiasm, said that the party leaders spoke everywhere “from Voorhees, who spoke from the balcony of the Grand all the way down to one Kern of Kokomo, who was found haranguing a group of hack drivers from a soap box on Indiana avenue.” No better evidence of the partisan bitterness of that historic year could be asked than the fact that The Kokomo Tribune described the proceedings under the headline—“Hoodlums.”

It was a little after the state convention that the young leader from Howard attracted state-wide attention by the ferocity of his attack upon Judge Worden of the supreme court in the district convention at Muncie. Few abler men have ever sat upon the bench, and none of greater personal or official probity, but the members of the supreme court had been guilty of the unpardonable extravagance of having purchased stationery and some of the conveniences for their offices and one by one as they appeared for renomination they were retired until Worden made his successful fight in the Fort Wayne district. Many years afterward, a year before his nomination for the vice-presidency, and in an address before the Bar Association on “Great Indiana Lawyers,” Mr. Kern referred to the incident as an extravaganza of his youth. His own description is the best one for the purpose here:

“The spirit of reform was strong upon me then. That was in ’76. I attended the convention of my district, which was held in Muncie. The county of Howard was then in the Fort Wayne district. I went over there determined to do what I could to purge the Democratic ticket of those unregenerate men who had brought disgrace upon the fair name of the party of Jefferson and Jackson. We went there, and the question as to whether or not Judge Worden should be removed was presented on a motion to adjourn. Allen county (the home of Worden) was there in force. About 200 shouters were there. They knew more about politics than I did at that early day, and the discussion was heated. I waited until Judge Worden’s champions had let loose their thunder, and then I proceeded to let mine loose. It did not occur to me that Judge Worden might be there, but I made a vindictive speech, because, as I say, the spirit of reform was strong upon me. I denounced the extravagance and profligacy of those men who had betrayed their trust in the bitterest and most vindictive terms. I had exhausted my vocabulary in my effort to villify those men who I thought had brought disgrace upon the party. And when I sat down a gentleman who was seated a little way in my rear tapped me on the shoulder. I looked around, and Judge Worden said to me, ‘Young man, I think I must form your acquaintance.’ “He did not change my vote, however, but when the vote was taken, it was so overwhelmingly in favor of Judge Worden that I finally compromised by moving to make it unanimous. Afterward I came to know Judge Worden better, and he was really a great lawyer.”

Attached though he was to “reform,” it appears that he was not enamored of the candidacy of Tilden, and before the St. Louis convention, in the ardor of his opposition, which probably was born of his devotion to Hendricks rather than to any real objections to the New York governor, he made the statement that he would not vote for Tilden if nominated. The seriousness of the threat was evident in the comment of The Kokomo Tribune immediately after the convention:

“John W. Kern declared upon his honor before the St. Louis convention that he would not vote for Tilden if nominated. Now he authorizes us to say that he is a liar and will vote for him. Of course.”

As a matter of fact he was more active than ever upon the stump, not only in his own section of the state, but in distant parts, and the effectiveness of his speeches in Howard may be judged from the unrestrained fury with which The Tribune assailed him in a personal way. It is doubtful if more bitter personal attacks have ever been made upon any politician anywhere or at any time, but it does not appear that Kern took any notice of them. The fact that the opposition paper referred to him in this campaign as “the Democratic party of Howard county” may throw some light upon the motives for the attack. Where it had previously softened its political asperities with scarcely veiled personal admiration, it now spoke of him habitually as “this fellow Kern.”