The life of John Worth Kern

by Claude G. Bowers

The hatred Senator Kern engendered at this time among the friends of Lorimer or the men accused did not appear upon the surface. The blond boss proved himself a consummate artist in the concealment of his hostility until after Kern had summed up the case against him.

But the existence of this hostility was not concealed. For a period of two months there was scarcely a day that did not bring its batch of scurrilous unsigned letters with a Chicago date mark.

Meanwhile the hearings seemed destined to drag on interminably. Long before the last witness was heard enough evidence had been submitted upon which any member of the committee might have formed an opinion. Newspapers began to hint that the purpose was to tire and disgust and confuse by the accumulation of the pages of the testimony.

The official stenographer of the committee throughout the hearings had been Milton W. Blumenberg, who stood high in his profession. One Saturday afternoon when the Burns stenographer was testifying, Blumenberg stood behind his chair looking at the witness’s notes. The hearing was adjourned for dinner to be renewed in the evening. The evidence disclosed that upon leaving the room on adjournment Blumenberg met a woman employed by the committee who immediately, and, strangely enough, challenged his opinion on the genuineness of the notes. He declared them “manufactured,” “faked,” and immediately after that Edward Hines and others of the Lorimer party appeared upon the scene and Blumenberg’s opinion was repeated for their edification. At the hearing that night Blumenberg broke in unexpectedly with a declaration that the notes were manufactured, and when the startled members of the committee undertook to question him as to his motive they were told they were “not the most important people in the world.” He was immediately placed under arrest for contempt and placed in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, with instructions that no one should be permitted to communicate with him. The whole atmosphere had become so colored with the idea of corruption that the incident created a painful impression. He was discharged from the service of the committee, and the matter was dropped on the representation of Blumenberg’s friends that he was the victim of a nervous breakdown.

But hard on the heels of this incident another sensational incident fed the public curiosity when a twenty-year-old telegraph operator of the Postal Company, stationed at the New Willard Hotel, who had sent a telegram for the Burns detective, testified that Edward Hines had attempted to bribe her with a roll of bills in his hand to let him read the message given in by the detective. The girl had not sought the notoriety and was so transparently truthful in her charming girlish way that no one not directly interested in the case could have doubted her veracity. Thus the trail of the serpent seemed to lead directly back to Washington.

IV

After the conclusion of the hearings the chief concern of the supporters of Lorimer was to postpone a vote in the senate as long as possible; and the first step toward this end was to indefinitely postpone the filing of a report. The hearings closed February 9, 1912, and it was not until May 20th that a report was presented to the senate, and it was largely due to the insistence of Kern, Kenyon and Lea that the delay was not greater. The proceedings of the committee when it met on March 27th to vote on a report are of historic importance and belong to the public.

The first resolution offered by Senator Jones was to the effect that nothing had developed in the hearings to justify a reversal of the solemn and deliberate judgment of the senate in the vote on the result of the first hearings. This challenge was promptly met by Senator Kern in the following resolution:

“That in the opinion of the committee there were used and employed in the election of William Lorimer to the senate of the United States corrupt methods and practices.”

Before a vote was taken on the Kern resolution, which was offered as a substitute for the Jones resolution, the committee voted on an amendment to the latter offered by Senator Lea to the effect that the investigation had disclosed that corrupt practices and methods had been employed. This went directly to the heart of the matter and was defeated by a vote of five to three, Kern, Lea and Kenyon voting for the amendment.