The life of John Worth Kern

by Claude G. Bowers

There were some, too, who could not understand how a leader could really lead and not occupy much of the senate’s time with speeches. During the four years that he was leader he seldom spoke. The program was crowded. It was of vital importance that this program should be written into law. This was particularly important during the first two years, for had the elections of 1914 resulted in a Democratic defeat in the House, the administration would have found itself at the end of its rope. It was of vital importance that the principal reform measures should be enacted. And it was clearly the policy of the opposition to curtail this program as much as possible through the prolongation of discussion. After all differences had been adjusted on the Democratic side, noses counted, and a majority found secure, it was Kern’s idea that the Democrats should let the Republicans “talk themselves out” as soon as possible and force an early vote. This policy was agreed to. But even after the agreement had been reached it was impossible to restrain some talkative Democrats from entering into verbal combat with the opposition and thus consuming precious time unnecessarily.

Thus during the long, weary days, weeks, months that these party and administration measures were pending Kern was at his post in the all but deserted senate chamber, paving the way for the vote; and when all the differences had been ironed out as to details, and the opposition had exhausted its lung power, and noses had been counted, and victory was assured, and the day for the vote was fixed, the orators flocked into the chamber from the ball park and the race courses to thrill the packed galleries with their perfectly useless eloquence and grasp the headlines on the first page of the daily papers to impress the groundlings with the idea that they had contributed mightily to the result. On these grandstand occasions Kern attracted no attention in the galleries.

But with the credit he was not at all concerned. It was enough for him that a victory had been scored and that he had done his full duty.

III

During the four years Kern’s relations with President Wilson were cordial and confidential. His admiration for the president knew no bounds. He never left him after a conference without being impressed anew with his remarkable grasp of affairs, his amazing prescience, his genius for work. “Uncannily wise”—was his verdict on one occasion. His conferences at the White House were so frequent that they became as the regular routine. Very often he went to the White House at night alone. And while some statesmen never failed to capitalize all meetings with the president, one of the rules laid down by Kern for the guidance of his office force was that no publicity should ever be given to his visits to the other end of the avenue. No living man is capable of properly estimating his services to the first administration of Woodrow Wilson but the president himself.

During the trying days of late August and early September, 1916, the country was seriously threatened with a general railroad strike that would have prostrated business and wrought general ruin. There have been a few more important but probably never more dramatic incidents than those surrounding the president’s efforts to save the country from this disaster. When he summoned the railroad presidents and the men to the White House for conferences it was with high hopes that a mere appeal to their patriotism would result in mutual concessions, but it soon developed that the presidents of the roads were indifferent to the public welfare. As the day set for the strike approached everything was laid aside by the president and the congress to concentrate upon the one pressing problem. On the night of the day the railroad presidents refused to accept President Wilson’s plan of settlement calling for an eight-hour day for the men, increased freight rates for the roads and a permanent arbitration commission, some light is thrown on the situation as it appeared to the leaders at the capitol in a letter of Senator Kern to Mrs. Kern:

“I am heartsick to-night that I can not be with you to-morrow (Sunday), but things are happening so rapidly here that I can’t leave. Nobody knows what is going to happen the next day. The railroad situation is alarming. The railroad presidents who are here seem to be determined not to yield to the president’s requests, and if they persist it means the greatest strike in the history of the country—one that will tie up every railroad and stop every train in the country. The president came to the capitol to-day and called Senator Newlands, chairman of the Railroad committee, and myself into his room to talk over a proposition to amend some of our arbitration laws and the Interstate Commerce law, so as to make further negotiations possible.... It is difficult to-night to foretell just what the outcome will be. The men who own the roads seem to care nothing for the public interests, and if disaster comes it will largely be their fault. I am calling the Steering committee together to-morrow (Sunday) and the president will probably come down to confer with a number of senators and congressmen Monday morning. I am holding up in health first rate. The weather has been much better since I last wrote you and is pleasant to-night. Yesterday morning I woke up at 6 o’clock and pulled down the blinds and thought I would sleep until 7:30 and didn’t wake up until 9. Am trying to get at least eight hours sleep every night.”

The following day the Steering committee met in the morning, the railroad presidents, unbending, left for their various headquarters to prepare for the strike, and that night (Sunday) the president did an unprecedented thing. It was a stormy night, the rain descending in a torrent, and the Finance committee was at work in the room in the basement of the capitol. Suddenly the capitol police, who had deserted the entrances to the capitol for their own room in the basement, were startled by the appearance of the president at their door. He had left the White House in his machine in the storm in search of Senator Kern. The senator was summoned from the committee room, and in the gloomy basement corridors the president and the senator began a conference which ended in the president’s room off the senate chamber after a janitor had been found to open the door. It was that night that President Wilson announced that he would hold the congress in session until the needed railroad legislation was enacted.

On Monday morning the conference of the president with senators took place in Kern’s private room, 249 Senate building. A second conference was held in the same room during the crisis—a history-making conference—at which the president’s line of action was outlined and adopted. The needed legislation was enacted on September 2, the country was spared the most disastrous industrial conflict in its history, and the country will not soon forget the remarkable indifference of the railroad presidents to the public’s interest. Throughout this crisis Senator Kern played a more important part than appeared upon the surface. His popularity with organized labor made it possible for him to bring some influence to bear upon their attitude, and he was kept in touch with all the conferences of the men through reports submitted to him after each meeting by men participating in them.

During the last two years and more of his leadership Senator Kern was greatly concerned with the international situation as it related to the world war. He hated war. He understood the frightful meaning of the struggle should conditions force us in. While not a member of the committee on Foreign Relations, he was in the confidence of the president and knew of the conditions that were tending to make war inevitable to a self-respecting people. So passionately was he opposed to war that he had little patience with Americans on pleasure bent insisting on traveling unnecessarily—through the war zone. He recognized their legal right to do so but was intolerant of their indifference to the possible effect upon the peace of a hundred million people. And yet he supported every move made by the president as justified by the insane policy of Berlin. “The condition is hell,” he wrote a friend in January, 1916. “The cyclone may hit us within a few weeks. Nothing short of a miracle can stop it. I have been up against some pretty knotty propositions, but nothing like this.”