The life of John Worth Kern

by Claude G. Bowers

The session merged into the next session without adjournment, and more administration measures calculated, as the president contended, “to destroy private control and set business free” were pressed for immediate consideration. The Trade Commission bill, and then the new trust measures, prolific of infinite contention among Democrats followed. And from time to time the faint shadow of the Mexican situation fell upon the gloomy chamber, and then the great cloud from across the sea, when the German army crossed the Belgium border. But the grind went on.

The temper of the Democrats was not sweetened nor their anxiety diminished by the approach of the fall elections of 1914. The special interest and opposition papers were bitterly assailing the administration measures, business had been temporarily disarranged by uncertainty and in some instances with sinister intent, and the law makers faced the possibility of submitting their political fate to their constituents without an opportunity to mend their fences. An effort was made to postpone action on the trust bills lest the controversy over whether trade unions should be included among the trusts in the meaning of the law should have a disastrous effect. There were some Democratic senators who stoutly insisted that they should, and in addition to his routine work as leader, Kern threw himself passionately into this controversy, indignant that any one should place in the same class the organization of business to arbitrarily fix prices and oppress the public, and the organization of workingmen for the purpose of compelling a living wage and living conditions.

At length, having been in continuous session for 567 days, and written into law the greatest amount of progressive constructive legislation ever written in so short a time in the history of the country, the congress adjourned less than two weeks before the elections. Throughout this period Kern had played a vitally important part, but not a spectacular one. When the senate was not in session he was busily engaged with the Steering committee in efforts to reconcile differences, to conciliate the disgruntled, and owing to the meager majority always in danger of being overthrown, frequent caucuses were called at night, and, when time was pressing, on Sunday mornings. His work was not the sort that strikes the imagination, but it was the kind that counts, and with a less astute, patient, conciliatory and watchful leader the story of the achievements of the Wilson administration during the first two years might never have been written as it was. So completely did he dedicate his time and energy to his work that weeks went by when he never entered his offices in Senate building, and senatorial duties more important than those of routine were performed by his assistants.

When the first congress of the Wilson regime passed into history James Davenport Whepley, writing of the president in The Fortnightly Review (London), said that he had “formed a legislative program which would have staggered a more experienced leader” and predicted that his power over his party in the congress would decline. As a matter of fact there was an undercurrent of rebellion, and it was not always that the comments of statesmen in the cloak room harmonized with their observations on the platform.

In the short session beginning in December, 1914, and ending March 4, 1915, this spirit of rebellion burst into flame but soon smouldered to ashes. The occasion was the president’s Ship Purchase bill, which was bitterly assailed by the special interest press and opposed by the Republicans with more spirit and unanimity than they had displayed before. Democratic opposition of a virulent nature developed. The caucus called by Kern voted to support the bill, but the opposition persisted. The filibuster that resulted has never been equaled since the Force bill days. Men like Senators Root and Lodge remained on duty like soldiers day and night. The forces behind the idea of a subsidy for private interests were never so alert. Senator Penrose, who had been so “ill” in Philadelphia that he could not venture to Washington to appear before the committee on Privileges and Elections which was considering an investigation of charges that a million dollars had been spent to assure his election, reached Washington over night and appeared in the senate chamber a perfect picture of robust health. Kern, who knew that he was in Washington, smoked him out of his retirement through a telegram suggesting that the Philadelphian send a physician’s statement to the effect that he was too ill to appear before the committee on Privileges and Elections. The debate was a mockery—such as those of filibusters always are; with men presumably of presidential caliber consuming hours of the public’s time reading pages from books having no relation to the bill under consideration. Plans were perfected to hold the senate in session day and night until a vote could be had, and Kern had comforts sent to his committee room on the gallery floor with the intention of getting a few winks of sleep from time to time. Then came the revolt. Seven Democratic senators bolted the caucus action and voted with the Republicans to refer the bill back to the committee. It had all been carefully planned, and some of these Democratic senators during the afternoon just before the vote had been observed making numerous trips to the Republican cloak room. It was the only instance during the four years of Kern’s leadership that he was unable to hold his party together behind an administration measure.

When the congress again convened after the summer adjournment of 1915 a better spirit of co-operation had been restored. After the passage of the Rural Credits bill, which is one of the great pieces of constructive legislation to the credit of the party, the greater part of the time was given over to the so-called “preparedness legislation” and the passage of measures recommended by the president to meet the international crisis which was growing more acute because of the short-sighted policy of Berlin. Although not enthusiastic over the preparedness program, and ardently anxious to prevent war, Kern accepted the leadership of his chief and supported him in all his measures. No member of the senate was more intimately identified with the president’s plan to prevent the threatened railroad strike in the late summer of 1916, as we shall see later on.

II

Never for a single moment in four years was a resting place in sight. President Wilson’s program “to destroy private control and set business free” was not concluded with the passage of the four or five great measures that caught the superficial eye, but it reached in its ramifications into all the byways of national life. Time and again when the senate was struggling under a deluge of important administrative measures, with the end far distant, and the members, work-weary and anxious to get back home, Senator Kern was appealed to by the president to add as many as half a dozen bills to the calendar for disposal during the session. These were always important and essential to the president’s purpose of destroying private control and setting business free, but they were not always appreciated at the time by the press or general public at their true value. While always in harmony with the spirit of the pledge of the party they frequently went beyond the specific promises and thus made it possible for Democratic senators sweltering in the heat to question the necessity of their enactment as a party duty. None of these but delighted Kern. And thus he was constantly engaged in feeling out the sentiment of his party colleagues, constantly consulting with the leaders, and reporting to the White House. Not infrequently the prevalent sentiment was in favor of postponement, but on the gentle, tactful but firm insistence of the president he would renew his efforts, usually ending in conferences of the Steering committee and party caucuses and the decision to act. While the machinery in the senate appeared to the casual observer to almost invariably be moving smoothly, there were many tempests in the teapot, occasionally a disposition to revolt. The opposition was always ready with its taunts that the Democrats of the senate had abdicated their senatorial prerogatives to the White House, and some wise observers for the press were fluent with their articles charging degeneracy to the senate and recalling the “good old days” when senators were “strong enough” to set aside presidential programs, but this did not annoy Kern in the least. He was content that some one had been found in high station with enough strength and prescience to point the way to the realization of the things he had fought for for many years, and to lead. But this situation kept him busy at his work of conciliation and ironing out differences. It was here that the personality, the character of Kern counted. He was popular with his colleagues on the Democratic side of the chamber, and no one doubted the sincerity of the man who without pretense had grown gray working for the day that had finally dawned, and no one questioned the soundness of his political judgment. His personal appeals for “harness work” for the sake, not only of the immediate principle involved, but of the party’s future reputation as a constructive force, had effect.

And it was here that his real strength as a leader impressed the superficial as a weakness. He never permitted temporary disagreements over single issues to deprive him of the friendship and confidence of the recalcitrant, or to lead him to hasty words of criticism or denunciation that would return to plague him in the next battle. When the seven senators deserted and bolted the caucus on the Ship Purchase bill he was saddened by the possibilities of serious future disagreements, but he was silent. Other Democratic senators took it upon themselves to bitterly denounce the “bolters” on the floor of the senate, and some thought this presumption an act of leadership of which Kern was incapable. They were right. It did not appeal to him as wise leadership to drive these men into chronic opposition to administration measures.

Kern was too tactful to have broken off relations with all his fellow Democrats who might at times wander from “the reservation.” He was not a bull in the china shop type of leader—fortunately for the Wilson administration and the party.