THE LIFE OF
JOHN WORTH KERN
[Illustration: JOHN WORTH KERN--1913]
THE LIFE
_of_
JOHN WORTH KERN
_By_
CLAUDE G. BOWERS
INDIANAPOLIS
THE HOLLENBECK PRESS
1918
COPYRIGHT NINETEEN HUNDRED EIGHTEEN
BY CLAUDE G. BOWERS
FORT WAYNE, IND
DEDICATED
TO
JOHN WORTH KERN, JR.
AND
WILLIAM COOPER KERN
“_It is fine to feel that one’s boy may become a great man; but I would
rather that my boys should be good without being great, than to be great
without being good._”--SENATOR KERN.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the preparation of this biography, in the midst of the duties of an
exacting profession, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to
Vice-President Marshall, Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo,
Secretary William B. Wilson, William Jennings Bryan, Judge Alton B.
Parker of New York, Senator Saulsbury of Delaware, Senator Kenyon of
Iowa, Senator Lea of Tennessee, Senator Thomas of Colorado, Senator
O’Gorman of New York, Senator Taggart of Indiana, Leon O. Bailey of New
York, “Mother” Jones, Andrew Furseth the Emancipator of the Seamen,
Jackson Morrow of Kokomo, Indiana, John Callan O’Laughlin of Chicago,
Louis Ludlow of Washington, D. C., Thomas Shipp of Washington, D. C., W.
H. Blodgett and Kin Hubbard of the _Indianapolis News_, for data,
verifications and reminiscences.
And I am under the deepest obligations to Robert E. Springsteen of
Indianapolis, and Howard Roosa, editor of the Evansville Courier, for
services too numerous to mention.
C. G. B.
INTRODUCTION
VICE-PRESIDENT’S CHAMBER,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
Because carping Pilot asked “What is truth” and did not stay for an
answer, the world has thought that question to be the one unsolved
riddle. Yet there are many other attributes to which answers have been
given that are almost, if not altogether, as great riddles.
What constitutes greatness has received as many answers as there have
been men to express them. It all depends upon the mental process of a
man as to whether his fellow man has attained unto greatness. The
paladin of finance would consider it a joke to be told that an
Egyptologist was a great man; the doer of deeds can never think of
greatness as an attribute to the dreamer of dreams; and thus it is that
the estimate by one man of another will only pass current with those of
like mind.
For me, it has been needful that brain and heart should work in unison
in the life of a man in order to render his story worthy of being
embalmed in a biography. Mere intellect is not sufficient; mere emotion
unsatisfactory. For thirty years I knew all about and I also knew John
Worth Kern. Heaven molded him with a clear and analytic mind--a mind
capable of grasping and elucidating the great problems of state--and
then Heaven further endowed him with a tender and loving heart, so that
much as he believed in the principles for which he stood and the faith
which he avowed, he had that large-hearted and generous judgment of his
fellow men which mark, to my mind, true greatness.
It is the measure of a little man to be cocksure, to be eternally and
everlastingly right, to be quite certain that Jehovah gave into his
hands all knowledge, all goodness and all power. It is the measure of a
really great man to walk with certainty and yet to walk humbly in his
public life, granting to other men the right to think, to speak, to act
freely.
This was the grade of man John Worth Kern was. He showed it in his
brilliant services at the bar, in his forceful presentation of his
party’s principles on the stump and in that kindly, loveable leadership
which, when he left the Senate of the United States, made it the supreme
desire of political friend and foe alike to do something for him as the
shadows of night began to gather around his head. To my mind he was one
of Indiana’s great and illustrious citizens whose life, when read by the
schoolboy of to-day, will help to sweeten, glorify and adorn the public
service of to-morrow.
It were impious here to speak of his beautiful home life. He was great
in the counsels of his party but in his home he transcended the common
mortal and became a demigod of love and good will. The Indianian will
know him and love him even more, if possible, when this biography is
read and it is remembered that it is the free-will offering of a man who
saw our dear, dead statesman and citizen in his hours of exultation, in
his moments of depression, when his soul was bare to the inspection of a
man who knew when he saw what he saw.
THOMAS R. MARSHALL.
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
I--CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH 1
The wilderness physician--Alto--Birth of Kern--Playing
doctor--Life in Iowa--The partisan of 1860--Kokomo
Academy--The equestrian orator--The pedagogue--Alto
society--A temperance speech--The actor in “The Demon
of the Glass”--The boy orator--Ann Arbor days--Letters
to Morrow--Visit to Canada--The slate-maker of 1868--Views
on Indiana politics--Hears Gough, Philips and
Whipple--Work in the Douglas Society--His reconstruction
views--Hears Zack Chandler--His thesis--Graduation--Taken
for a maniac.
II--KOKOMO DAYS--LAWYER AND CITIZEN 27
“Tipton no place for a LL. D.”--Opens office in Kokomo--Anna
Hazzard calls--Prospects--Office loafers--The
“boys”--His popularity--Considered a genius--C. C. Shirley’s
recollections--Eloquence before juries--Pranks in
court--Buys a $30 cake--Marriage--Takes first rank as
criminal lawyer--Battle with Hendricks and Gordon--Hendricks
predicts brilliant future--The Hawkins case--Court
battle with Voorhees--Voorhees’ tribute--The Kokomo
of the seventies--The community orator.
III--AS DEMOCRATIC LEADER IN HOWARD, 1870-1884 47
County convention of 1870--Kern writes resolutions--Nominated
at twenty for legislature--Brilliant campaign--Pays
election bet--Helps establish Democratic paper--Writes
for papers--Democratic convention of 1872--Establishes
a Greeley paper--Rides in political processions--Makes
reform fight in 1874--The McGill machine--Active
in ’76--His keynote--Addresses “hack drivers on Indiana
avenue”--Phillipic against Worden--His regrets--Opposed
to Tilden’s nomination--“I’m a liar”--Attacked in
the press--A Scurrilous story--Campaign of ’82--His
views on money in elections--The faith of his followers.
IV--REPORTER OF THE SUPREME COURT, 1884-1889 68
Seeks nomination for reporter of Supreme Court--The
great convention of ’84--Nominated--A spirited campaign--Wins
state reputation--Challenges Holstein to debate--Considered
gubernatorial timber--Recollections of his
campaign of ’84--His retorts--Evenings with ballads--Work
as reporter--Joke on Judge Niblack--Extends acquaintance--A
day of conviviality--Defeated in 1888--Marriage
to Miss Cooper--The Indianapolis lawyer.
V--LEADER IN THE INDIANA SENATE, ’93 AND ’95 88
Elected to state senate--Conceded leadership--His appearance--Nominated
Turpie--Espouses an unpopular cause--Relations
with labor organizations--Leads fight to legalize
unions--His speech for Deery bill--Attracts national
notice--Unpopularity of labor--Leads senate fight for employers’
liability law--Dramatic incidents--A signal triumph--Fights
for child labor law--Leads minority in 1895--Fights
Republican gerrymander--Excoriates Republican legislative
record--The Nicholson law--Kern’s part--Estimate of
colleague.
VI--EUROPE AND THE CAMPAIGN OF ’96 114
Rest in Europe--Meets Alton B. Parker--General Collins--Paris
days with Morss--The silver pre-convention debate--The
English opera house meeting--Kern’s speech--The
convention--Kern enters campaign--Effect of developments
on him.
VII--GUBERNATORIAL BATTLES 126
Political conditions in 1900--Kern declines to run for governor--The
Morss dinner--Accepts at midnight--Frank
B. Burke--Kern nominated--The campaign--Defeat--Speech
at Bryan birthday dinner--Recognized as Bryan’s
Indiana lieutenant--Keynote speech in 1902--The battle of
1904--Kern supports Parker--Refuses nomination for governor--Consents
on plea of Parker--Parker’s verification--Defeat.
VIII--EUROPE AND ASHEVILLE: AN INTERLUDE 144
Europe for rest--Green Smith--Incongruous tourists--Joke
on Smith--Catches cold in campaign of 1906--Forced
to Asheville--Life there--Letters to John, Jr.--Recovers.
IX--RUNNING WITH BRYAN 156
Kern and the vice-presidency--Pleads poverty--Bryan offers
room in White House--Letter to _Indianapolis News_--En
route to Denver--With Bryan at Lincoln--Vice-presidency
not discussed--Discussed in Denver--Boom dinner
at the Savoy--Kern’s silence--Indiana delegation organizes
to push him--His only words to delegation--Selected by
the leaders--Marshall’s nominating speech--Nominated--Hero
of the hour--Stops at Lincoln--Town “Kern-mad”--Meets
with Bryan and the committee--Publicity of contributions
before elections--Embarrassment in the enemy’s
camp--Reaches home--Non-partisan reception--Kern’s
speech--Tribute of Kokomo--At Bryan notification meeting--Kern
notified--His southern tour--Meets Sherman at
Chicago--John, Jr., stricken--Kern’s eastern tour--John,
Jr., worse--Cancels dates--Indiana tour--Election night--Kern’s
affection for Sherman.
X--BATTLE FOR THE SENATE 188
Kern announces candidacy for senate--Opposed by the
breweries--The other candidates--Lamb’s warning against
secret ballot--Scenes at the Denison--At the state house--Analysis
of vote--Defeated--Alibis--The famous Morrow
interview--Convention of 1910--“The Governor’s
Plan”--The fight--Kern’s attempt to refuse the nomination--Meredith
Nicholson’s comment--Nominated--Beveridge’s
position--Kern’s keynote--Views on the speech--Fight
for progressive Democrat votes--Kern’s attacks--“Mary
of the vine-clad cottage”--Roosevelt, Bryan and
Parker--Victory.
XI--KERN’S FIRST CONGRESS 209
Demoralization of Republicans in congress--New Democratic
senators--Their progressive trend--They rally about
Kern--Kern leads fight for reorganization--Nominates
Shively for leader--Named on Steering committee--On
Finance committee--Favors Shively for the place--Relations
with Shively--A famous pension speech--Canadian
reciprocity--The “Farmer’s lobby”--The Lawrence strike--Position
in Stephenson case--The Archibald impeachment.
XII--KERN’S FIGHT AGAINST LORIMERISM 226
The Lorimer election--His vindication--A new investigation--Kern
on committee--Scenes at the hearings--The
sinister atmosphere--The committee division--Lea and
Kenyon--Affectionate relations of the three--Kern’s base
of operations--Scurrilous letters--Kern’s cross-examination--The
Blumenberg incident--The girl telegrapher--Attempts
to postpone committee report--Kern’s insistence--The
committee fight--The minority report--Kern the dominating
figure--Kenyon’s estimate--Lea’s--John Callan
O’Loughlin--Kern’s speech--Challenges Lorimer’s supporters--Lorimer
attacks Kern--Why Kern did not reply--Lorimer
expelled.
XIII--KERN’S POSITION AT THE BALTIMORE CONVENTION 252
Kern hears of fight on Parker--His embarrassment--Refuses
temporary chairmanship--Bryan’s reasons for not
being a candidate--Bryan decides on Kern--Efforts to dissuade
Bryan--Bryan’s testimony on the subject--A sleepless
night--Kern plans his appeal to Parker--Tells Mrs.
Kern--The convention scene--Bryan nominates Kern--Kern’s
dramatic appeal--The effect on the public--A surprise
to Bryan--Bryan’s delight--His description of Kern’s
speech--Kern chairman Platform committee--Kern the
dark horse--His pre-convention attitude--Bryan’s knowledge
of his embarrassment--“Testing sentiment for Kern”--“Wilson
or Kern”--Luke Lea--Kern loyal to Marshall--Important
states ready to go to Kern--If Kern had given
consent--Reasons for refusal--Bryan’s attitude--Kern’s
influence on result.
XIV--ELECTION TO LEADERSHIP OF THE SENATE 282
A Democratic senate--The grave responsibility--Ugly memories--New
Democratic senators--Reorganization movement--Kern
absent from conferences--A telegram--Conferences
at Luke Lea’s home--Kern chosen by progressives
for leader--His special qualifications--Elected unanimously--His
conciliatory policy--Revolution in committees--Changes
in rules--The country’s interpretation of
the revolution.
XV--KERN’S FIGHT AGAINST FEUDALISM IN WEST
VIRGINIA 296
Feudalism in West Virginia coal fields--The system--The
horrors of Cabin Creek--Reign of the gun-men--War of
1912--Unionism outlawed--Ernest Gaujot the King Guard--Outrages
on women and children--“I don’t hear my
baby calling me now”--Battle of Mucklow--Mother
Jones--Leads miners to governor--Gun-men must go--Mother
Jones organizes men--Governor appoints investigating
committee--Its report--Armored train shoots up miner’s
camp--Murder of Estep--Martial law--Mother Jones arrested--System
enforces silence--The public wonders--Mrs.
Freemont Older--Magazine exposes--Constitutional
rights denied--Civil courts ignored--Mockery of trials--Kern
presents resolution--Powerful interests alarmed--Pressure
on Kern--Sinister fight on resolution--Kern
hears from people--Mrs. Older sees him--“Will see you in
hell first”--Bitter attack on Kern--Mother Jones smuggles
telegram to him--A dramatic incident--Effect of telegram--Mother
Jones released--Goes to Washington--Her work
there--Kern’s first speech--Demands light--Kern’s second
speech--Warns of social injustice--States rights--Wins the
fight--Result of investigation.
XVI--SENATORIAL BATTLES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE 328
Industrial Relations Commission--Kern’s interest--Attempt
to cut its appropriation--Kern’s successful protest--The
Seamen’s bill--Slavery of the sea--Andrew Furseth--His
appeal to Kern--Kern’s attitude--Accompanies Furseth
to the president--Furseth’s anniversary letter to Kern--The
Kern Workman’s Compensation Act--The Child
Labor Bill--Kern’s part--His fight in caucus--Vardaman
drops the curtain--Kern leads fight in senate--Excoriates
a preacher--His effective use of President Eliot’s letter.
XVII--IN THE ROLE OF SENATE LEADER 349
Responsibility of leadership--On guard--Conciliation--The
absentees--A jocular rebuke--Threatens slacker with
denunciation--Summer of 1914--Temper of congress--Work
in caucus and conferences--The one revolt--Smokes
Penrose out--The president’s program--Kern’s tact and
temper--Why he did not speak--Relations with the president--Opinion
of him--Night conference in capitol basement--Strike
conference in Kern’s room--Letter to Mrs.
Kern--Concern over international situation--White House
conference on Germany--Relations with Bryan, McAdoo,
Daniels and Wilson--Opinion of Lane--Estimates of Senators
Thomas, O’Gorman and Saulsbury--Relations with
Republicans.
XVIII--THE LAST BATTLE 377
Indiana campaign of 1916--Comedy and tragedy--Blunders
of national leaders--Lack of money and organization--Speakers
refused--Kern’s advice ignored--His plan--His
illness--Handicaps of campaign--Mother Jones reports--Last
campaign speech--Philosophical in defeat.
XIX--THE CLOSING OF A CAREER 389
Last session--Retains leadership--Failing health--Shadows
of war--Kern’s distress--The President’s senate speech--Kern
delighted--On arming merchant ships--Kern’s valedictorian--Henry
Cabot Lodge’s response--Hoke
Smith’s--Watson’s--Stone’s--Thomas’--Testimonial of Democratic
senators--Vice-president’s note.
XX--THE REAL KERN: A COMPOSITE PORTRAIT 403
The Kern of the closet--Solving problems in solitude--Powers
of concentration--Patience--Patience under attack--Tireless
letter writer--Art of his letters--Manner of
preparing speeches--Religious nature--Rebukes a minister--Letter
on death of a child--Personal appearance--The
companion--Reminiscences and stories of Henry Barnhart,
Ludlow and Blodgett--Leon Bailey’s picture.
XXI--AT KERNCLIFFE 453
Kerncliffe--Mrs. Strauss on “The House that Araminta
Built”--Kern’s hope for rest--Failing health--At Asheville--Lecture
tour--Breakdown--Ordered back to Asheville--Letters
to sons--Last days--Death--The burial at Kerncliffe--Memorial
meeting at Indianapolis--Senate action--Secretary
of Labor Wilson’s tribute.
LIFE OF JOHN W. KERN
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH
I
In the forties the constant stream of sturdy pioneers pouring into
Indiana from the eastern and southern states began the work of redeeming
the state from the wilderness. These early settlers were a hardy folk,
adventurous, inured to toil, and strong of character. In 1840 the first
white man settled in Harrison township in Howard county, albeit the
locality had been a paradise for trappers for several years before a
permanent settlement was made. It was a country of rich soil, but
heavily wooded with primeval forests, and many years of assiduous labor
were to intervene before the stumps could be cleared from the fields or
the highways be made at all passable in bad weather. Almost immediately
after the first white man established a permanent home in the township a
water mill was built, and about it a settlement sprang up which took the
name of Alto. Soon the village boasted--and the word is used
advisedly--three stores, three cabinet shops, a blacksmith shop, a boot
and shoe shop, and during the first two years of its existence it did
as much business as Kokomo, a few miles distant. Here was constructed
the first church in the township, a large one built of logs, which was
to serve as a place of worship for many years. And in the middle of the
first decade of the existence of this settlement in the wilderness Dr.
Jacob Harrison Kern moved to the village, built a home and opened an
office.
Doctor Kern’s great grandfather, Adam Kern, had emigrated from Germany
about the middle of the eighteenth century, with ten children, seven of
whom were boys, and settled in Frederick county, Virginia. One of his
sons, the grandfather of Doctor Kern, had made his home at Kernstown,
Virginia, about four miles south of Winchester, where six sons were
born, the eldest, Nicholas, and the father of the future medical adviser
of Alto, having first looked out upon the world on the third anniversary
of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and in the midst of
the revolutionary war. He was the father of ten children, the sixth of
whom, born in December, 1813, was christened Jacob Harrison. In 1838 Dr.
Kern, accompanied by three of his brothers, moved to Shelby county,
Indiana, bringing with them an old negro woman known as “Aunt Giny,”
whom they set free. A little later the doctor, who appears to have been
a victim of the wanderlust after leaving his Virginia home until his
ultimate return, moved to Warren county, Ohio, where he began the
practice of medicine. Here he met and married a Nancy Ligget, who is
remembered by her daughter as “a comely woman, tall, rather slender and
with black hair and eyes.” Here the first child, Sally, was born in
1845, and soon after this event the little family moved to Alto.
Doctor Kern was a rather stern, grimly serious man, of exceptional
professional capacity, and strong mentality, and his reputation as a
physician spread through the surrounding country, resulting in an
extensive practice for miles about. He was what is popularly known as a
“strong character,” possessed of little of the sense of humor with which
his more celebrated son was so abundantly gifted. Asked for a
description or characterization of him, the few, now living, who
remember him almost invariably hesitate and begin with the comment,
“Well, it is rather difficult to describe him. He was an unusual
man--different from most men. He had a fine mind and a fine character.”
His son remembered him with an affection in which admiration
predominated. He was cast in the Puritanic mould, abhorring indolence
and vice, preaching and practicing frugality and toil.
At the edge of the village he built a home which was considered a
pretentious structure for the time and place, although it consisted of
but two rooms. The fact that instead of being a rough log hut it was
weatherboarded and had “two front doors” was enough to stamp it in the
wilderness as the abode of the patrician of the community.
Here on December 20, 1849, just nine years after the first white man
settled in the township, John Worth Kern was born.
II
The first five years of his life were spent in the house with the “two
front doors” and differed in no wise from the early childhood of the
other children of the wilderness community except that he had more of
the comforts than fell to the lot of many others. The only picture of
the future senator of that period that is preserved is in the memory of
the venerable sister--a picture of the boy in his favorite amusement,
sitting astride an old discarded saddle on a carpenter horse with a pair
of saddle bags filled with powders and bottles, going to visit an
imaginary patient, and solemnly giving instructions to “give him one
powder every hour till Monday, and if he ’plains of it give it to him
agin.”
In 1854 Doctor Kern moved with his family to Warren county, Iowa, where
the next nine years were spent near Indianola in pleasant surroundings,
with congenial neighbors, and in the midst of plenty. Here we get our
first glimpse of the future partisan in an incident connected with the
Lincoln-Douglas campaign of 1860. From his earliest boyhood he knew he
was a Democrat and he took no pains to conceal the fact. During the
dramatic campaign of 1860 he frequently drove to Indianola with a load
of wood, and on these expeditions he attracted attention by his
vociferous yelling for Douglas. On going to town after the election, he
was accosted by a friend of his father’s with the query as to how he
felt over the result.
“Like Lazarus,” snapped the eleven-year-old partisan.
“Why, how is that?” he was asked.
“Like I’d been licked by the dogs,” was the quick retort.
After the death of Mrs. Kern the doctor soon lost his taste for far
western life and in 1865 he returned with his two children to Alto,
which was to remain the home of the family until after the only son
commenced his professional career.
At the time young John returned to the house of his nativity, a tall,
lightly built youth of fifteen, he immediately was accorded a position
of leadership among the boys and girls of his own age. The social
activities of the community were of a simple nature and revolved about
the church. The young people met at the Sunday school services in the
old log Methodist church, and at the Cobb church a mile distant from the
village, for gossip and flirtations, and it was in connection with the
Sunday school that the future statesman first attracted attention to
his precocious ability. I am indebted to Mr. Jackson Morrow, a life-long
friend, for a description of this event. “John was then an active member
of the Alto Methodist Sunday school,” he writes. “In that day the annual
Sunday school celebration was the great social event of the community.
In the community were numerous country churches and each maintaining its
Sunday school. It was during the summer of 1865 that there was held in a
beautiful grove adjoining Alto a celebration of rather more than
ordinary merit. It was an all-day affair. The forenoon was devoted to
singing by the various schools in attendance and an address by a local
celebrity. Then followed the picnic dinner--a sumptuous affair requiring
an hour and a half for its disposal. The afternoon was largely given
over to recitations and the reading of original papers by selected
members of the several schools. John Kern represented the Alto school
with a paper. His theme was Temperance. He attacked the saloon and
drunkenness in a vigorous manner. It was really an able paper and read
in his clear, incisive and earnest manner captured the large audience.
From every quarter the comment was heard that if a mere boy could make
such an address much could be expected of him when he became a man. The
paper was singled out for publication in the county paper.”
About this time he entered the Old Kokomo Normal, an educational
institution much superior to most of the Indiana schools of that period.
The building, a commodious one, had been erected several years before by
the people of Kokomo and the surrounding country with the view to giving
their children the advantage of training in the elements of higher
learning and to fit them for teaching in the public schools. The head of
the school at the time was Prof. E. N. Fay, a college graduate and a man
of scholarly attainments, and he had surrounded himself with a competent
corps of assistants. While attending the Normal young Kern lived at his
home in Alto, riding his horse to Kokomo in the morning and returning in
the evening. For the sake of economy he took his lunch with him. The
six-mile stretch of mud road between his home and the county seat was
impassable during much of the winter except on horseback. In zero
weather the ambitious youth suffered severely, but having developed the
habit of declaiming his lessons, and making speeches to his nag during
these trips, he managed to neutralize the effect of the weather by
vigorous gesticulation and an unsparing exercise of his lungs.
At the Normal young Kern is described by Mr. Morrow as “a brilliant
scholar but not a plodder.” He seemed to absorb the matter of the
textbooks without effort. “In the study of English Grammar he
particularly excelled,” writes Morrow. “He studied language not to get
its dull formulas, but to know how most forcibly and clearly to express
his thoughts.”
It was during his Normal days that Kern determined definitely upon the
study of law.
While Doctor Kern would have defrayed the expenses of his son’s legal
education, the latter was of an independent nature and preferred to pay
his own way. With the view to making the money required for a course of
legal instructions in a university, he took the examination for a
teacher’s license before he was sixteen, and while the examination was
conducted by Rawson Vaile, a graduate of Amherst College and a stickler
for thoroughness, he made a very high grade and was granted a
twenty-four months’ license, which was the highest permissible by the
county examiner. Here enters the pedagogue.
III
The young teacher took charge of his first school at the age of fifteen,
and taught two terms, but in different schools, as he never failed to
observe in later years in an attempt to belittle his professional
ability. His first experience as a teacher was in the home school at
Alto, and in the winter of ’66-7 he taught in what is still popularly
known as “the old Dyar school house,” about three miles east of Alto,
in the country. The John Kern of this period is described by one of the
students as “tall, straight, boyish in appearance, not particular in his
personal appearance, usually having his trousers over a boot strap.”
Those still living who knew the future senator as a country school
teacher take issue with his own estimate of his success. His methods of
instruction were those of an original thinker, and ignoring the hard and
fast rules, he succeeded in creating an interest among the students with
gratifying results. I am indebted to Albert B. Kirkpatrick, one of his
students who was in later years to cross swords with him at the bar, for
some interesting recollections which reflect light on the character of
the youthful pedagogue:
“The school (Dyar) was large for a country school, about sixty,
some boys and girls larger than the teacher. On the playgrounds
Kern was one of the boys, and you would scarcely know from his
conduct that he was a teacher. One day he ordered a large boy to
stand upon the floor and on his refusal Kern told him he could do
that or take a whipping. After school he kept the stubborn rebel,
together with two other boys as witnesses, and proceeded to
administer the castigation which, according to report, was quite
severe. One day a dispute arose as to the ownership of a rabbit
some boy had caught. Kern acted as presiding judge and found that
the boy in possession of the rabbit was not the rightful owner,
and fixed as his punishment the restoration of the rabbit and the
infliction of lashes, which he proceeded to lay on.
“Kern was good in the common school branches, and he especially
delighted to read in McGuffey’s Sixth Reader from Patrick Henry and
other oratorical notables. He was fine in the school house debates
and generally covered about half the school house in his orations,
gesticulating wildly and speaking at the top of his voice.
“He was not methodical in his teaching, but original, and the
students seemed to learn rapidly. They liked him, as a rule,
although he did not then possess those remarkable social qualities
that characterized him in after years.”
The “school house debates” referred to were features of the Dyar school
literary and debating society, which owed its existence to Kern’s
initiative and bore the pretentious name of the Platonian. It was during
the period when the country was torn over the problems of
reconstruction, and these furnished the topics for the debates. The
sixteen-year-old teacher invariably took part, and his chief competitor
was usually Jesse Yager, described as “a solid, substantial citizen of
the community and a man of great ability.” In these discussions Kern
invariably took a positive stand in favor of a liberal policy toward the
white people of the southern states who had returned to their
allegiance, and the carpet bagger usually came in for an unmerciful
scoring. One who often heard him in those days, Jackson Morrow, in
recalling the earnestness and vigor of the boy orator, expresses the
opinion that these speeches “would have reflected credit upon the best
statesmen of the period.” Such views as were held and advocated by the
young school teacher were bold indeed for the time and place. Passions
still ran high, and Howard county was extreme in its republicanism of
the Thad Stevens variety. Strangely enough, the boldness of the
pedagogue in no wise detracted from his personal popularity and served
to enhance his reputation. Many years afterward, when Kern, soon after
his nomination for vice-president, returned to Kokomo to meet his old
friends and neighbors in a great non-partisan reception, Jesse Yager,
his polemic adversary of the Platonian days, then a very old man,
occupied a place on the platform.
It was during the summer of 1866 that the pedagogue, a member of the
“Alto Dramatic Society,” made his first and only appearance “on any
stage” as an actor in “The Demons of the Glass.” Mr. Morrow gives an
interesting description of the occasion.
“The entertainment,” he writes, “was held on a delightful summer evening
in a grove not far from the village of Alto. The stage was built of
rough lumber and lighted by kerosene lamps, but a full moon flooding
the landscape with a mellow light, and the great spreading tops of
centuries-old forest trees gave this primitive stage a beauty and
dignity hard to surpass. The show was free and the people came en masse
from far and near, and when the curtain rose on the entertainment a very
large audience was waiting. Kern was easily the star of the evening. So
realistic was his acting of the husband and father becoming a drunkard
and bringing poverty and ruin on a happy home, that an unpleasant
sadness stole over the audience and a strong temperance lesson was
impressed upon the people present. As a boy John Kern was an
enthusiastic ‘dry.’”
It was toward the close of his last term of teaching that he became an
active member of the Methodist church, the occasion of his conversion
being a revival meeting held at Albright’s chapel. For a time he became
deeply religious, taking his church duties with a seriousness that
attracted attention. This ostentatious spirit of worship soon passed.
During these teaching days, when the young pedagogue was preaching
temperance, damning the radicalism of the Thad Stevens, protesting
against carpetbag government in the southern states, practicing his
embryo eloquence upon debating societies in the woods, and experiencing
a spiritual awakening, he was attracting attention throughout the
community
[Illustration:
JOHN W. KERN
DR. JACOB H. KERN NANCY KERN
At the University of Michigan
KERN’S BIRTHPLACE AS IT APPEARED IN 1908
]
and county as a youth of precocious ability and rare gifts. This did not
affect his natural modesty or his relations with young people of his own
age. The society of Alto and the neighborhood could scarcely be
described as “fashionable,” but its members were genuine and its
friendships real. Writing of his boyish characteristics, Mr. Morrow
says: “His friendship was steady and faithful. I never knew him to cut a
friend as the mood or occasion might suggest. He appeared to always meet
his friend with a smile and a friendly handclasp that impressed one as
real, and he manifested his interest in helpful ways. He had been
trained to know the value of a dollar, taught that it represented real
value and should not be squandered, but if he met a friend in need and
he had a dollar in his pocket that dollar was his friend’s at once. He
had large sympathies and in a sense he was his brother’s keeper. His
general character never changed.”
During these pedagogue days he was giving careful attention to the
selection of a college in which to prepare himself for the law, and his
choice fell on the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, then the great
school of the west, with Cooley at the head of the lecture corps. He had
not accumulated so much that he did not have to carefully consider the
expense without drawing liberally upon his father, and this he had
determined not to do. The living expenses at Ann Arbor presented an
attractive prospect as well as the faculty, and in September, 1867, he
set out for the university determined to make the most of his
opportunities.
IV
In the latter part of the sixties the university at Ann Arbor ranked
easily as the first educational institution of the middle west. The
faculty of the law department, with Thomas M. Cooley at the head, was in
no wise inferior to that of Harvard and Yale. The student body was drawn
from the entire Mississippi valley and beyond. The town of Ann Arbor at
the time possessed the charm one likes to associate with a college town,
with its pleasant homes, wide lawns, and fine old forest trees lining
the streets. At the time of his matriculation young Kern, student of
law, had not yet reached the age of eighteen, and here he was to spend
two profitable years and receive his degree before reaching his
twentieth birthday. During the two years he was compelled to economize
in every possible way. In the telling of the story of his Ann Arbor days
I am deeply indebted to Jackson Morrow, a boyhood friend, with whom he
corresponded during the period and who has carefully preserved most of
the letters written him by Kern from the university. These rather
suggest a youth possessed of considerable assurance, and limited
experience, inspired by much ambition, and prone to “act up” to the
rôle of the embryo lawyer. In his first letter November 3, 1867, he
describes his impressions of the university.
“I got here early on Saturday morning and proceeded at once to the
university, where I relieved myself of thirty-five dollars, and
received a paper which entitles the bearer to a full course of law
lectures in the University of Michigan. With a light heart and a
materially lightened pocketbook, I then sought a boarding house,
which we found at Mrs. Cramptons, in the east part of the city,
where we now are paying $4.12½ per week, or, as the people here
would term it, four dollars with a shillin’. We have a good
boarding house, good rooms, good fires, good appetites, etc.
“Well, the Monday following I wended my way to the Law building,
where I listened to my first lecture by Hon. Thomas M. Cooley.
Since then I have attended two each day, sometimes delivered by
Cooley, and sometimes by one of the other professors of
law--Campbell, Walker and Pond. The number of students here this
winter is hardly so great as last, owing, no doubt, to the hard
times, as the number of students in all the colleges of the country
has materially decreased since last year. Their general library
here, which is free to all, contains over 30,000 volumes and is the
best place for reading I was ever in.
“I received a letter from Sturgis the other day. He is, as usual,
in all his glory. A short time ago he wrote me giving his views
politically, and, as they did not just suit me, I sat down and gave
the gentleman the benefit of sixteen pages of foolscap containing
some sound old Democratic doctrine which I guess he profited by, as
he has held his peace ever since.”
It will be noted that the Kern, the law student in his teens, was quite
as partisan as in his earlier boyhood, and nothing in these letters to
Morrow is more interesting than the sidelights they throw upon his
political views.
In his next letter, written three weeks later, he describes the method
of instruction in the law department, and gives his correspondent, who
had succeeded him as teacher in the Dyar school, some sound advice as to
handling the obstreperous “scholars.”
“I was glad to learn that you had become teacher in Dist. No. 8,
Taylor township, and wish you the greatest success in your
undertaking. I think before spring you will appreciate some of my
last winter’s trials. The scholars, however, are generally well
disposed and are not naturally vicious. My advice is not to spare
the rod, but crack the whip under their bellies whenever they
deserve it.... I sympathize deeply with every school teacher,
knowing as I do the responsibility resting upon them. I think I
have done my last teaching unless I ignobly fail in the study of
law. I am well pleased with the study so far--as the mode of
instruction here makes very pleasant what would otherwise appear
intricate and difficult. We here not only get a theoretical but a
practical knowledge of the law, for we have club courts, so that
every student may have ample opportunity of displaying his legal
knowledge. I have been an attorney in four cases and have another
in the Indiana Club court next Saturday. Prof. Moses Coit Tyler,
professor of rhetoric and elocution in the literary department,
lectures to us twice a week on elocution. This is a great advantage
to us.... Our little winter that we had some days ago has vanished
and we are now having a delightful Indian summer--warm and smoky.
From all appearances the climate here is not so disagreeable as
that of Indiana in the winter season....”
Two weeks later he had changed his opinion of the charms of a Michigan
winter and was suffering with a cold, which did not prevent him,
however, from giving Morrow the advantage of his eighteen years’
experience in the world on the proper method of maintaining discipline
in a country school. His reference to the girls about Alto and Kokomo
indicates that he was not entirely immune to the charms of the sex.
“The present juncture finds me very unwell, suffering from a
miserably bad cold and a very severe sore throat.... We now are
enjoying (?) the stern realities of a northern winter--chief among
which are overcoats, overshoes, comforters, cold feet, frosted
ears, etc. The ground is covered with snow to the depth of two or
three inches and skating is the chief amusement. They have a
skating park here, and it is thronged every evening.
“I was glad to hear that you and the school were progressing
finely--I would advise you to show a bold front--use the hickory
and beech when needed, and you will succeed, for the students
generally are well disposed.
“You have my very best wishes in the reorganization of the
Platonian. I would like to be with you a while and excrete a ‘few
gas.’ You may tell Mr. Madison Jackson that my days of sleigh
riding are over for the present, but were I in Indiana I should
very much enjoy such a tear as we had that night. You may also tell
Em--that ‘sparking’ is old and has played out, especially sparking
in the rain. When I get home I may do some little of it and she had
better look out....”
In his next letter dated after the first of the year 1868 he refers to
his holiday dissipation at Detroit and at Windsor in Canada, and the
reader will probably smile at the nineteen-year-old globe trotter’s
careful explanation of the location and character of Detroit:
“We have had on the whole a very pleasant vacation--though rather
dull at times--and our lectures commence again to-morrow, and I’m
very glad of it. We have a good sleighing snow now, and as I write
I hear the sleigh bells jingling as merrily as can be. I don’t
indulge in the luxury of sleighing this winter, as it is really a
dear luxury--only $1.50 per hour.
“Well, on the 31st of December, the last day of the old year, I got
aboard the 8 A. M. train east and went down to the metropolis of
Michigan, i. e., Detroit, which is pleasantly situated thirty-eight
miles east of here on the Detroit river. It is a city of about one
hundred thousand inhabitants--and is improving very rapidly....
After we had explored Detroit very thoroughly we went across the
river into Queen Vic’s dominions and landed in a town of about two
or three thousand inhabitants called Windsor--noted as being the
stopping place of C. L. Vallandigham. Canada is a stinking
place--two-thirds of the people in Windsor are Americans of African
descent, while the rest are full-blooded Britishers who in point of
cleanliness are in no way superior to the “cullid” folks. I got
enough of Canada in a short time and recrossed into Uncle Sam’s
domain, took the 4 o’clock train for Ann Arbor, where I arrived at
6, being satisfied to remain there till the 28th March, when I will
make my exit for Alto, the city on the hill....”
The next of the Morrow letters, written in January, 1868, is especially
interesting, in that it discloses the budding politician and slate maker
engaged in the determination of the personnel of the national Democratic
ticket for the campaign of that year. In the upper left-hand corner of
the envelope he had neatly printed his ticket:
FOR PRESIDENT
GEO. H. PENDLETON
FOR VICE PRES.
CHAS. O’CONNOR
OF N. Y.
In this letter he grows enthusiastic over the action of the Indiana
Democracy in nominating Thomas A. Hendricks for governor.
“Since receiving your letter I had a little sick spell, had a
doctor to see me, who very kindly cured me and relieved me of six
shillin’s. We are now having splendid winter weather--just snow
enough to make good sleighing and just cool enough to make one
cooly comfortable without an overcoat. Time is flying by very--very
rapidly. The four and a half months that I have remained here have
glided by so rapidly and so merrily that I can but look back upon
them with surprise and wish that they were here again. I have only
about nine weeks to stay here, when I shall take my departure for
Alto to realize the comforts of sweet, sweet home.... I see that
the Democracy of Indiana have nominated a strong ticket with
Hendricks as standard bearer. I think in the present or coming
campaign we can vanquish the Radicals, defeat their candidate for
governor, place T. A. Hendricks in the gubernatorial chair, send
Dan Voorhees to the senate and Judge Lindsay to congress--restore
the constitution and laws to their proper place, elect George H.
Pendleton president of the United States, and then throw out the
sails and the old ship of state will move on more smoothly than it
has done since the Democratic party surrendered the country to the
Radicals to be worked over.”
Less than three weeks later, February 12, 1868, the young slate maker
had found it well to remove Chas. O’Connor from the national ticket as
a candidate for the vice-presidency and on the envelope of his next
letter we find with Pendleton the name of John P. Stockton of New
Jersey. We are left in doubt as to how O’Connor had lost the support of
the embryo politician or the reasons for the new partiality for
Stockton. In this letter we get an inkling of some of the advantages Ann
Arbor offered to a young man of Kern’s ambitions and tastes. It was
about this time that he had the opportunity of hearing Gough’s lecture
on oratory, of listening to Wendell Phillips lecture on “The Lost Arts”
and of hearing E. P. Whipple. In this letter, too, we have the sole
reference to Kern’s participation in the work of the debating societies.
It is not surprising to find that this uncompromising Democrat should
have joined the “Douglas Society.”
“We are now having splendid weather--good sleighing, fine skating,
nice walking--in fact, everything that nature has anything to do
with is conducive to a fellow’s happiness.
“On Monday night John B. Gough lectured here on ‘Eloquence and
Oratory.’ He is a splendid lecturer and his lecture, which was two
hours and a quarter in length, was a success--all except the last
quarter of an hour, when he exhorted the young men of the
university to use all their eloquence in procuring for the
down-trodden African the election franchise. The applause from the
Rads was vociferous, while from my corner came a little puny hiss.
E. P. Whipple lectures here next Tuesday night, and on Saturday
night Wendell Phillips speaks on ‘The Lost Arts.’
“We have some good literary societies in connection with the Law
Department. I belong to the ‘Douglas.’ On last Saturday night we
discussed the question, ‘Resolved that the reconstruction policy of
congress is unwise and inexpedient.’”
In the debate on the reconstruction policy of congress young Kern led
the debate in opposition to the policy. His attitude toward negro
suffrage at this time was the position of his party, but the opposition
was not wholly confined to Democrats. It was a time when party feeling
ran high. Political discussions were bitter and frequently were followed
by blows. Kern in his teens was a radical Democrat and never mentioned
the Republicans as anything other than Radicals. In later life he was
friendly to the colored race, but fifty years before he had been an
extremist in his position on the proper political status of the negro.
His radicalism was not moderated by the tone of the Republican press and
speakers of the time. Many years later in speaking in the senate he
referred to the time he had heard Zack Chandler, the great Republican
leader of Michigan, making a political address in Ann Arbor, make the
statement:
“Democrats talk a good deal about their rights, I recognize the
fact that they have rights which they are entitled to enjoy, at
least two rights--one a constitutional and the other a divine
right--a constitutional right to be hung and a divine right to be
damned.”
It is not remarkable that with men of age and experience indulging in
language of this character that a nineteen-year-old partisan should have
found it provocative of retaliation.
In his last letter from Ann Arbor, January 1, 1869, we find him
preparing his thesis on “The Dissolution of Agency,” studying hard for
his examinations, seriously considering a location for the display of
his professional prowess, and instructing his friend Morrow as to the
most direct route to Ann Arbor and warning him against the “abominable
thieves” at Grand Trunk Junction--leaving one with the impression that
he may have had an unpleasant encounter with the tribe.
“Your letter was received a few days ago and on this, the first day
of the New Year, I seat myself to answer it. Eighteen hundred and
sixty-nine was ushered in by a snowstorm, which had the effect of
keeping the people off the streets and giving them quite a desolate
appearance. I have been very busy ever since I left Indiana and am
at present putting in all my time writing a thesis on ‘The
Dissolution of Agency,’ which calls into requisition all my legal
knowledge....
“We senior law students don’t have quite so fine a time as we did
last winter. Then all we had to do was to sit and listen to
lectures, but now we are quizzed each morning on the lectures of
the preceding day, and after holidays we will be examined every
afternoon on last winter’s lectures, to wind up with an examination
of five days at the close of the term. Rather a gloomy prospect,
isn’t it?
“I have no particular fears but that I shall get through all right
and come out a veritable LL. B. I have thought considerably in
regard to my future operations and have concluded to go into
business at Tipton, Indiana, for a while at least. It’s rather a
hard town, but as it is young and growing there are hopes for it. I
had intended to locate in Iowa until after the November elections.
That 30,000 majority in favor of negro suffrage staggered me.
“In coming out here you had better start on the afternoon train
from Kokomo, come to Peru, and then to Toledo, buy a ticket for
Grand Trunk Junction, which is three miles from Detroit. There you
will connect with the Michigan Central Road, and will probably be
at Ann Arbor on the 7 P. M. train. Write me the day you start and
the train you start on and I’ll be at the depot. At Grand Trunk
Junction keep a lookout for your watch and pocketbook, for there
are a set of abominable thieves there.
“Ann Arbor is all right, as is the university. Affairs are rather
dull just now owing to the fact that a large proportion of the
students have gone home to spend the holidays. Two of our law
students, in order to pass away the time the other day, engaged in
the luxury of a fight. The result was that one of them was badly
threshed. As they were both Democrats it was a rather unfortunate
affair....”
Fortunately for the biographer, when Kern received his degree and
returned to Howard county, his friend Morrow left Howard for Ann Arbor
and the correspondence was continued for a time. In a letter dated April
4th, 1869, he gives a “short sketch of his meanderings” after leaving
Ann Arbor, returning by way of Toledo and Peru, and finding “Howard
county literally capped with mud.” “Nobody,” he adds, “pretends to
travel with a wagon--such would be impossible. I never saw such a
stretch of muddy country in all my eventful career.” But
“notwithstanding the mud,” he found things “rather lively,” with many of
the young women of the neighborhood calling to inspect the new attorney
in their midst. “I have as yet made no definite arrangements as to
practicing,” he writes. “I am thinking of going in with Milton Bell or
Clark N. Pollard”--this probably being written in a spirit of fun, as
the two men mentioned were prominent members of the bar. In the next
sentences he adds--“If I don’t go in with them I will go into a firm
with John Worth Kern, LL. B.” He was not in the best of health at the
time of his graduation, and he writes Morrow: “My health is no better
than when I left. My cough doesn’t get much better. I have taken a whole
bottle of medicine since I have been here.”
Hardly had he reached his home when his neighbors arranged for a speech
from the neighborhood prodigy, and the young lawyer, having prepared it
with a care becoming the importance of the occasion, went out into the
woods near by, where he was practicing it with much vigor of
gesticulation and expenditure of lung power when a neighborhood girl,
passing the outskirts of the wood on her way to the house “with the two
front doors,” saw him without recognizing either the man or the
occasion. Rushing breathessly into the Kern home, she explained that she
had encountered “a crazy man” in the woods making all sorts of unearthly
noises.
“Oh, he’s not crazy,” said Sally Kern smiling, “that’s only John
practicing his speech.”
A little later the shingle of “John W. Kern--Attorney at Law” was hung
at Kokomo.