The life of John Worth Kern

by Claude G. Bowers

I

IN the summer of 1895, after the adjournment of the legislature, Mr. Kern, on the advice of his physician, went to Europe for a period of rest and relaxation, and spent a few weeks in France and England. We are permitted glimpses of him in his meanderings through letters written at the time to his father and sister, Mrs. Sarah E. Engel. He sailed from New York on June 29th on a German ship “not fashionable but substantial and safe.” Landing at Southampton, he hurried on to London, greatly impressed by “the beautiful agricultural country—said to be the finest part of rural England, and rivaling in appearance any part of America I have seen,” but amused at “the little Jim Crow cars” and the “freight cars about the size of covered wagons.” In London, where he stayed at the Morley Hotel, he was fascinated by the throbbing greatness of things. “It is as far ahead of New York as New York is ahead of Indianapolis,” he wrote. Here he settled down to seeing London in his own way, and we find him seated beside the driver of an omnibus, “getting a bird’s-eye view” of the city, and for an additional six pence having pointed out the great parks, the British Museum, St. Pauls, London Bridge, the Bank of England, the Tower, the Mansion House, the Temple, Westminster, and the various churches. Having thus got his bearings he settled down to intensive touring, delighted with everything he saw except the people whose condescension he resented. General Patrick Collins of Boston, a friend, and then consul-general to London, was attentive, and he had a letter to T. P. (Tay Pay) O’Connor, the famous member of the Irish parliamentary party, who pointed out the lions of English public life in the House of Commons. He spent some time in the courts, visited points of historic interest, and attended services in St. Pauls, which he found “bewildering.” “The music of the great double organ and all the hundred voices of the choir, reverberating throughout the arches and the domes, was beautiful, but awe inspiring.”

At the Morley Hotel he met Judge Alton B. Parker, a prominent member of the New York bar, destined to be his party’s nominee for the presidency nine years later, and discovering many mutual interests and friendships, an attachment was formed which existed to the day of Kern’s death. The two lawyers tramped the tourist’s path together and had many a chat at the Morley.

After little more than a week in London he crossed to Paris, where his personal friend and political co-worker, Samuel E. Morss, editor of The Indianapolis Sentinel, was consul-general, and here he was given every advantage that the official prestige of his friend could bestow. He was delighted with Paris, “the most beautiful city in the world,” and especially with the French people. “The people of all classes are happy,” he wrote his father, “and go in for having a good time. The very poorest classes are bright, cheerful, and clean. I don’t think I saw a sad face in France. They are quite prosperous and show great evidence of thrift.” Morss turned his office over to his subordinates and devoted his entire time to entertaining the man from home, and it is not improbable that not a little Hoosier politics was discussed between the two.

While it was his intention to visit Ireland, his experience in channel crossing on his return to England was so disheartening that he abandoned his original plan of visiting Dublin and the Killarney lakes. On learning that the weather at the time was abominable in Scotland he decided to spend the remainder of his time in England and see some of the country outside London. “One of the most interesting trips I have made,” he wrote Mrs. Engel, “was to the Shakespeare country. I went from London to Harrow, then to Rugby, made famous by Tom Hughes’ great book, then to Coventry, then to Lemington, a great watering place, thence by coach along the banks of the Avon to Stratford-on-Avon, where Shakespeare was born and is buried. This trip—thirteen miles—was through the most beautiful country I have ever seen. Stratford is a little city of 8,000, and one sees and hears nothing but Shakespeare. The house in which he was born, and the cottage where Ann Hathaway lived and in which he courted and married her are very old, but are preserved by trustees. The house in which he was born is filled with Shakespearian relics of every description. His tomb and monument are in the village church. The people get their principal living from tourists. There have been over 20,000 visitors there this year, and each one has something to pay every time he turns around.”

On this trip, too, he visited Warwick Castle, and later on Windsor Castle. Like a true Democrat he did not fail to “drive out three miles to the fields of Runnymede, where the English barons compelled King John to sign the Magna Charta;” and the sentimental side of his nature impelled him to make a journey of reverence to the tomb of Gray, the poet, and the church whose curfew “tolls the knell of parting day.” Contrary to the spirit of the average tourist, he took a deep interest in English farms and farming and in a letter to his sister, who lived upon a farm, he observed: “The farming here is splendid. Every foot of ground is made to produce and produce well. There is no poor farming here, and no poor crops this year. The wheat is now being harvested. They raise no corn here—but produce an article called ‘horse beans’—something similar to our peas, which the horses thrive on. The horses are splendid beasts. Those used for draft purposes look nearly as large as elephants, and their driving horses are very fine. It is a great mutton-eating nation, and sheep are raised by the thousand—you see them everywhere.”

By the latter part of August he admits that he has “had his fill of sightseeing and anxious to get back home and to work.” His health was greatly benefited by the change when he reached New York in the first week of September.

II

At the time of his return to Indiana the great debate to determine the position the Democratic party was to take on the money question had commenced. The administration of Grover Cleveland had lost the confidence of the major part of the party in the state. The bond issue stuck in the craws of the masses. The silver wave was sweeping over the country, destined to leave many wrecks in its wake and to throw upon the rocks many new lights of party leading. In Indiana the silver forces were militantly aggressive and were busily engaged in perfecting an organization which was to make history. In view of his subsequent intimacy with Mr. Bryan and the radical forces of the party, it is interesting to find that during the period of the preliminary debate Mr. Kern remained unresponsive to the fervent appeals of the friends of silver. As the time for the state convention approached, the conservative members of the party took counsel in the hope of stemming the tide which gave promise of committing the party aggressively to the cause of the free and unlimited coinage of silver without awaiting the action of any other nation. Many of the most influential and prominent party leaders in the state were strongly opposed to such action, and were convinced that such a course would work irreparable disaster to the party prospects for years to come. It was not a new party battle in Indiana. In other days, when the fiat money idea was uppermost in the public mind, it required all the prestige of the leadership of Hendricks and McDonald to dissuade the party from adopting a radical platform in conformity with the greenback philosophy.

About the middle of May, 1896, a free silver conference was held in Indianapolis which bubbled with enthusiasm and seethed with the spirit of revolution. Some of the leaders in the movement boldly announced that the failure of the party to stand for the free and unlimited coinage of silver would release them from all allegiance to the party in the campaign. The conservatives, or gold men, determined to challenge what they considered a dangerous movement at a mass meeting which was called at the English Opera House in Indianapolis on the evening of May 28. This meeting was addressed by some of the most popular leaders in the state and was presided over by Captain W. R. Myers, long an idol upon the stump. Speeches were made by Alonzo G. Smith, former attorney-general, former Congressman William D. Bynum, who had been a prime favorite with the Indiana Democracy and enjoyed a well-deserved national reputation, former Congressman George W. Cooper of Columbus and Mr. Kern. Resolutions were adopted on the motion of Pierre Gray, son of Governor Isaac P. Gray, four years before Indiana’s candidate for the presidency. A committee was appointed to work for “the cause of sound money” at the coming convention, consisting of such well-known Democrats as Thomas Taggart, John W. Holtzman, S. O. Pickens, John R. Wilson, Capt. W. R. Myers, William D. Bynum, James E. McCullough, James L. Keach and John W. Kern. It would be a travesty of history to ignore the fact that previous to the action of the national convention at Chicago Mr. Kern was strongly opposed to the free and unlimited coinage of silver without regard to the action of any other nation. He realized early the trend of the times and the difficulty of changing the drift. Times were hard. The party had been shamefully betrayed by the Interests in the making of the tariff law. The bond issue had divorced the confidence of the rank and file of the party from Cleveland. The spirit of revolution was in the air. It required courage to stand forth and command the tide to turn back.