Two years later, in 1878, so vicious had some of the Republican leaders become against him that the scurrilous story was circulated that at a Democratic meeting in Anderson he had “thanked God for the death of Oliver P. Morton.” This was too brutal in its falsity for The Kokomo Tribune, which made an investigation and denial with the statement that “Kern is about as mean a Democrat as anybody ... but this article is intended to give the devil his due.” It appears that in 1880 he was not a member of any committee or a delegate to any convention, but later in the campaign he was drafted to run for prosecuting attorney, and again he ran several hundred ahead of his ticket without winning.
In the county convention of 1882 we find him reviewing the issues as he had done regularly for twelve years. His speech this year smacked strongly of the position he so prominently took in later years regarding corruption in elections. Reporting the speech The Kokomo Despatch said:
“He bore down heavily on the use of money at the polls and predicted that the time would come when every candidate who uses money to buy his nomination or election will be repudiated and spewed out by the people.”
This practically ends his political career as a citizen of Kokomo, for the next campaign was to find him a candidate on the state ticket, and upon his election he changed his residence to Indianapolis. From that time, however, until his death, thirty-three years later, the Democracy of Howard county claimed him as its own, and in campaign after campaign he was called upon until the last one in which he ever participated to discuss the issues in Kokomo.
Many stories are still told to illustrate the impression made by the Kern of this period upon the voters of Howard county. One of these relates to the supreme confidence of a Quaker idolater of his living in the Quaker stronghold of New London, where Democrats were a novelty. One cold election morning this venerable Democrat hobbled laboriously to the polls to be confronted by an old character of the village by the name of Uncle Jimmy Arnett, who was noted for the uncompromising bitterness of his Republicanism with the question:
“How art thou this morning?”
“My rheumatics is very bad. I could hardly get here.”
“Thou must be very old. How does’st thou intend to vote?”
“I am past eighty, but have always voted the Democratic ticket since I first voted for Andy Jackson.”
“Thou art old and hath but a brief time on earth and should make thy calling and election sure. Thou had’st better vote the Republican ticket.”