BATTLES FOR THE SENATE
I
The seventeen months following the election of 1908 were to bring to Mr.
Kern the most bitter disappointment and the most gratifying triumph of
his career. While Indiana had been lost to the national ticket by a
comparatively small majority, local conditions, and the remarkably
attractive campaign of Thomas R. Marshall, the gubernatorial nominee,
had resulted in the election of a Democratic governor and legislature.
And the majority in the legislature meant the election of a Democratic
United States senator. As a result, the polls had scarcely closed in
Indiana when the state found itself engaged in another spirited contest
to determine which of the Democratic aspirants should be sent to
Washington. In quick succession these men appeared upon the scene with
their organizations and pretensions. It was the general assumption of
the masses of the party that Mr. Kern, who had sacrificed himself to the
party in 1900, in 1904 and again in 1908, and whose association upon the
ticket with Mr. Bryan, the popular idol of the Indiana Democracy,
carried with it that leader’s following, would enter upon his reward.
But this assumption was not to go unchallenged. To thoroughly understand
the situation it is necessary to know something of the character of the
campaign which had resulted in a Democratic triumph. It had hinged upon
the periodic issue of liquor legislation forced upon the politicians by
the action of Governor Hanly in compelling the Republican state
convention to declare in favor of county option. This action had been
met by the Democrats taking a stand in favor of ward and township
option, and the issue had been accentuated by the move of Governor
Hanly, in defiance of the appeals and threats of his fellow Republicans,
in calling a special session of the legislature in the fall and forcing
the county option law upon the statutes before the voters had an
opportunity to register their verdict. The so-called liberal element
lined up aggressively with the Democrats and with its powerful
organization, with ramifications into every community, contributed much
to the result. At any rate it took to itself the triumph. And this
explains the element of uncertainty precipitated into the senatorial
situation--the liberal element was opposed to Mr. Kern.
Among the men who offered themselves as candidates were several who had
richly earned a reward from the party. Chief of these was Benjamin F.
Shively, who had distinguished himself in early manhood by a brilliant
career in the house of representatives, and had endeared himself to
thousands by his gallant fight in 1896, when he led the party as its
nominee for governor. A man of imposing presence, extraordinary
intellectual equipment and impressive eloquence, he measured up to the
high senatorial traditions of the party in the state of Hendricks,
Voorhees, McDonald and Turpie. And in addition to that he was the
favorite of the liberal element that claimed the credit for the victory.
Another aspirant was John E. Lamb, who had begun a career of exceptional
promise as a member of the house of representatives before he was
thirty, had maintained the reputation then made through years of
brilliant service on the stump, and had, upon the personal request of
Mr. Bryan, taken charge of the western headquarters in the campaign of
1908. Major G. V. Menzies, who had behind him a long career of effective
party service, L. Ert Slack, about whom the radical temperance forces
rallied, and E. G. Hoffman, a young man, then comparatively little known
but backed with the prestige of the organization that had nominated
Marshall for governor, completed the list.
While the various candidates and their organizations made the customary
claims, it was generally thought throughout the state among party men of
the rank and file that the recent nominee for vice-president would have
an easy triumph, previous to the appearance of the politicians in
Indianapolis. It was the contention of Mr. Shively’s supporters that
since Kern had chosen the vice-presidency and their candidate had
confined himself to the senatorial campaign the state victory warranted
him in insisting upon the fruit of the triumph; and Mr. Lamb’s friends
were equally insistent upon the claim that his management of the western
campaign for the party gave him a clear right to the honor; while the
others rested their cases upon the ground that any good party man had a
right to aspire to the senatorship. Notwithstanding all these
conflicting claims the prevalent impression over the state was that Kern
would be selected. Until the politicians moved on Indianapolis, two
weeks before the caucus, there was not the shadow of a doubt in the mind
of Mr. Kern as to his election.
Seldom in the political history of Indiana have more animated scenes
been witnessed than those that were staged about the Denison Hotel in
Indianapolis during the two weeks preceding the contest in caucus.
Headquarters were opened early by all but Kern, who persisted in the
folly that his election was assured by popular mandate. Delegations of
local admirers of candidates flocked from all sections. The café, in
those days a place of frolic and folly, was packed until the small hours
of the morning with wire-pulling politicians. All the candidates had
perfected excellent organizations of practical political manipulators
of men--all save Kern, who relied on popular opinion. The result was
numerous interchanges of views between the various camps, attempts at
bargaining, and all tending to the crystallization of one opinion--that
Kern was the man to beat. Thus his advantage proved his weakness. He was
not, however, to be permitted to drift without a warning. Within
twenty-four hours after reaching the scene of battle Mr. Lamb, as
perspicacious a politician as the state has produced, accurately sensed
the situation and realized that the efforts of powerful elements were
being directed primarily toward undermining the prospects of the
Indianapolis candidate. He did not underestimate the resources of these
elements and was convinced that the salvation of Kern depended upon an
open ballot to the end that the force of opinion might be brought to
bear upon the legislators. With this in view he early importuned Kern to
take a determined stand against a secret caucus, and lead off himself
with a declaration in favor of a vote in the open. On the following day
Kern was said by the press to favor an open ballot--but he made no
statement. And when, on the day following, the press reported “Kern
stock booming,” with thirty-five votes certain on the first ballot, he
permitted himself to be lulled into a sense of security. It was almost a
week after Lamb had taken his stand and but two days before the date
for the caucus that Kern was forced by unmistakable developments to a
realization of his danger, and he gave out a statement to the effect
that the people had a right to know how their representatives voted.
It was on the day of the caucus that the trend of events began to
develop into meaning to the spectator. Members of the legislature were
actually quoted in _The Indianapolis News_ as saying that they “did not
intend to tell any one how they voted.” And that same evening the common
talk about the hotel lobby was of combinations against Kern, with all
the other candidates posing as the logical beneficiary of the combine.
When, accompanied by Oscar Henderson and Michael A. Ryan, Mr. Kern
reached the state house on the night of the caucus and took up his
quarters in the rooms of the lieutenant governor it was with a full
realization of his danger. He knew that the votes would be delivered in
the dark, and he suspected that with the exception of Lamb the other
candidates were in league against him. Almost exhausted, he lay down
upon a couch for an hour, too tired to talk, merely nodding his head in
reply to questions. During the balloting the scenes about the state
house were exciting enough and not a little disgraceful. Members
emerging from the room were followed like prisoners by attaches of the
legislature in an effort to prevent them from conversing, and one of
these narrowly escaped a caning at the hands of Lamb when he poked his
head over the candidate’s shoulder in an effort to hear what he was
saying to the senator from his own county, who was acting as his floor
manager. It required twenty ballots to elect, but the first ballot
sounded the knell of Kern’s hopes. Where he had hoped for more than
thirty votes he received but twenty-five, although the combined strength
of the two next highest, Shively and Lamb only surpassed it by one vote.
The second ballot was significant with two desertions--at a time when
there could be but one explanation for such desertions, and that plain
treachery. On the third ballot, when Lamb went to him, he received
thirty-four votes, but instead of starting a rush in his direction he
fell to twenty-eight on the next ballot--showing that men playing the
cat and mouse act with him had taken flight. At 10 o’clock Kern rose
from the couch and paced the corridors smoking, his hands in his side
pockets, and on the announcement of the fifth ballot he said “It’s all
over.” From that time on it was a case of hoping against hope. As the
contest narrowed to Kern and Shively efforts were made to persuade some
of the losing candidates to throw their support to Kern, but their
attitude clearly disclosed in the case of the men approached that he was
the one man they would not benefit if they could help it. At 2 A. M.
the door to the caucus room flew open--Shively had been elected, the
final vote giving him 42 to Kern’s 36.
That was the darkest night in Kern’s career.
Through years of sacrifice he had reached--this. He went home that night
more completely crushed than he ever was before or after.
But over at the hotel a group of politicians celebrated throughout the
night, not so much over Shively’s election as over Kern’s defeat. But
the next morning threw a different light on things. A wave of bitter
resentment against the secret caucus swept over the state and
legislators were being called to an accounting. The roll call by the
various constituencies of the state during the next few days disclosed
that Kern still had the majority of eight he had figured on. It was a
period of alibis. Irate members under suspicion of treachery furiously
announced through the press that they were “ready to lick any man who
says I did not vote for Kern.” _The Indianapolis News_ editorially
expressed the prevalent opinion when it said--“We think that Mr. Kern
suffered from the secret ballot, for this deprived him of the weight of
the popular indorsement which was clearly his, and which would have had
full play had there been an open ballot.” The event attracted attention
all over the country and within twenty-four hours Representative Charles
B. Landis, from Washington, made the prophetic prediction that this
particular secret caucus would result in a direct primary “or something
of the sort.”
With Kern it was accepted as the end of a political career, and he
turned again, now sixty years of age, to the practice of his profession.
About this time he received a letter from James B. Morrow, the
well-known Washington journalist, to the effect that he would soon be
passing through Indianapolis and would stop over in the hope of having a
talk with him concerning his early struggles, with the view to writing a
special feature article. Mr. Kern replied that he would be glad to see
him. It was several months before he appeared. The night he reached
Indianapolis Kern received him in his office and after relating the
story of his early struggles he sat until a late hour with the
journalist exchanging stories and reminiscences of public men. During
the whole of this time not a word was said about the senatorial
election. At length as they were preparing to leave and Morrow was
helping Kern on with his overcoat, the former remarked that in the east
they had expected to see Kern in the senate. With a whimsical smile Kern
replied that he too had expected it, but that “they got eight of them
away from me.” On being asked who he meant by “they” he replied--“The
brewery crowd.” It was not the understanding of Kern that this was part
of the interview, but Morrow, with the keen nose for the important,
incorporated it in his story. In doing so he did not employ the exact
words used--but the sense was the same. The difference was due to the
cold type. That interview was to pursue him as long as he lived. He
might have escaped some embarrassment by giving the lie to the newspaper
man--a favorite method of most politicians. But Kern knew that Morrow
wrote sincerely and with no evil intentions and it was so nearly exact
that he accepted it. Two years later, after his election to the senate,
Morrow entered the office of Kern in Washington and asked to see him. “I
want to thank him, congratulate him, and apologize to him. I wrote an
interview with him once that must have caused him considerable
annoyance. In years of experience as a newspaper man he is the first
man, thus confronted with an interview that caused annoyance that did
not repudiate the interview and put the lie on the correspondent. He did
not--and he stood the gaff. I want to apologize for unintentionally
causing him annoyance, thank him for not giving me the lie, and
congratulate him on being a man.”
That interview was perhaps the most famous ever given by a public man in
Indiana.
II
Kern quickly recovered from his disappointment and turned to his
profession with the determination to put politics behind him forever
and devote the remainder of his life to making money for his family. He
had sacrificed much to politics, and at the age of sixty was a poor man.
But he had an excellent practice and could look forward with confidence
to several years of active work. While too ardently attached to the
principles of his party to fail in party service when occasion called he
considered his office-seeking days as over and his family rejoiced in
his retirement.
As the campaign of 1910 approached with another United States senator to
be elected, Governor Marshall startled the stationary politicians with a
statement in advocacy of the nomination of a senator in the state
convention. This was one of the fruits of the secret caucus of the
spring of 1909. At first there was a disposition to treat the suggestion
with levity, but it appealed so strongly to the rank and file that the
old-line politicians finally felt compelled to take an aggressive stand
against it. And the fight was on. The governor merely stood firmly on
his statement, taking the position that it would not be becoming in him
to take the stump in its behalf, but his personal popularity carried it
far. And when almost immediately many veteran politicians such as John
E. Lamb put on the armor in its behalf the fight became picturesque and
exciting. There has probably never been a more dramatic political
convention in Indiana than that which met in Tomlinson Hall in the
spring of 1910. We need not go into details concerning the preliminary
work of the convention culminating in the triumph of the “governor’s
plan.” With this phase of the convention Mr. Kern had nothing to do. He
occupied a seat with the Marion county delegation--one of the rank and
file. After the vote on the plan he left the hall and was absent when
the names of various candidates for the senatorial nomination were
presented. He had a premonition that his name might be urged upon the
delegates and had taken steps, as he thought, to prevent any such
movement. Hearing that the delegations from Howard and Clinton counties
had announced their intention of supporting him, he had personally
protested and felt that he had accomplished his purpose. He did not know
that a few farmer delegates from the Indianapolis delegation could start
a storm. Returning to the convention while the first ballot was in
progress he found that his name was before the convention. “When I
entered the hall,” he said afterward, “several men yelled ‘Stand pat,
John,’ and I didn’t know what to do for an instant. I thought, however
that the manly thing to do was to make a statement to the convention and
I stood on a chair and told them that my name had been presented without
my knowledge or consent, and that no man had any right or authority to
present my name and that I was not in any sense a candidate.”
The moment he concluded Wabash county was called and cast 15 out of its
16 votes for him, and Wayne county followed with its 26 votes--the solid
delegation.
When his name had been first presented there was a tremendous ovation
and cries of “Kern,” “Kern” drowned all other noises. In a box in the
balcony an interesting little drama was enacted. Mrs. Marshall, wife of
the governor, was entertaining several ladies, including Mrs. Kern and
Meredith Nicholson, the novelist. When Kern’s name was presented and the
demonstration began, Mrs. Kern, frankly elated at the rare honor being
shown her husband, insisted that he would not accept. This was received
with incredulity by the others present. The subject had been thoroughly
threshed out about the family hearth and she knew. Nicholson scouted the
idea that he would decline--a preposterous idea! When Kern appeared, his
coat almost torn from him by frantic friends trying to hold him back,
and mounted the chair and rebuked his friends, the novelist, amazed,
exclaimed--“That man’s not human.” But that was not to be his final
effort. The first ballot ended with Kern far in the lead with 303 votes,
only six of these from Marion county, the other 177 having been cast
for Thomas Taggart. On the second ballot Taggart withdrew his name and
cast the solid vote of the delegation for Kern, and the roll call ended
found him with 647 votes.
It was then, with the nomination within his grasp, that Kern made his
supreme effort to put aside the crown. This time he took the platform
and the convention heard him with impatience, and with a considerable
show of feeling he protested against the right of the delegates to force
upon him something he had renounced. When he said that it had been
intimated that he had been masquerading in the matter he was greeted
with shouts of “No, no,” “Sit down” and “You can’t refuse.”
Leaving the hall on the conclusion of his speech he went to his law
office and began work on a case. It was while thus engaged, and after
Lamb had also withdrawn in his favor, that the stenographer, answering
the telephone, turned to him in surprise with the exclamation--“Why, Mr.
Kern, you have just been nominated for the senate.”
His first inclination was to refuse the nomination. But the fact that it
was so manifestly the spontaneous will of the party and the urgent
insistence of the avowed candidates that he face a duty finally
persuaded him against his will. Almost in a flash all his plans for a
peaceful life in the practice of his profession were ruins at his feet,
and he again, as so many times before, put on the armor and prepared
for battle.
III
The senatorial campaign in Indiana in 1910 was unique in the political
history of the state. Senator Albert J. Beveridge was the nominee of the
Republican party for re-election, although his position with his own
party was precariously insecure. He had entered public life as an
aggressive and brilliant exponent of the more pronounced Hamiltonian
theories, and had been a consistent champion of Big Business, an
audacious defender and eulogist of the trust, an eloquent advocate of
the protective tariff, and in other ways, viewed from the Democratic
viewpoint, a peculiarly advanced and defiant reactionary. But he had
rebelled against the Aldrich senatorial machine when it threw even
discretion in the winds in its arrogant determination to force the
Payne-Aldrich tariff bill upon the country, and had joined Dolliver,
Cummins, Bristow, Clapp and Lafollette in the fight against it. This he
had done with his usual brilliancy and eloquence, and he had thus
incurred the deadly enmity of the reactionary element of his party in
the state. Unhappily for him this was the predominant element. His one
hope under the circumstances was that his courageous act of rebellion
would rally to his support the progressive element of the Democratic
party and thus make up for any loss from the Republicans. This plan,
however, contemplated the creation of the impression among the
progressives that the election of a Democratic legislature would result
in the election of a reactionary to the senate, and his supporters had
two or three men in mind to hold forth to the people as likely
beneficiaries of a Democratic victory. The action of the state
convention in nominating a candidate overthrew all these well-laid
plans. The nomination of Kern, nationally known as a progressive, was
the last straw. Little wonder that Senator Beveridge, in writing to
Governor Marshall after the adoption of “the governor’s plan,” said “You
have broken my heart.” But thus handicapped he prepared to contest every
inch of the ground, and no man has ever made a more thorough and
brilliant campaign.
Kern opened the campaign in a strong speech at Evansville on October
1st. It was a powerful presentation of the issues involved in the unique
campaign in which a Republican senator was appealing for support on the
strength of his repudiation of the policies of his party while urging
the retention of that party in power. The action of Beveridge in voting
for the ship subsidy bill and against the income tax was used with
deadly effect, as was the insistence of some of the senator’s friends,
such as Charles G. Sefrit, of _The Washington Herald_, that had the vote
of the senator been necessary to the passage of the Payne-Aldrich bill
he would have supported it. All his references to his opponent were
directed by Mr. Kern to an effort to compromise his position as a
contender for the progressive vote, and the senator had been too
intimately identified with Republican policies to make this difficult.
The last half of his speech was consumed in a denunciation of the
extravagant expenditures by Republican congresses and the misuse of the
taxing power.
The speech was considered extraordinarily adroit and forceful. _The
Indianapolis News_, a Republican paper, never friendly to the senator,
in an editorial analysis of Mr. Kern’s discussion of the senator’s
progressive pretentions, managed to insinuate an interrogation of its
own and concluded by saying: “What Mr. Kern had to say of governmental
extravagance was well said. He argued that extravagance and protection
are related to each other, that protection is itself extravagance. On
the whole Mr. Kern’s speech is a strong and fair statement of the
Democratic position. This is manifestly a campaign in which the speakers
on both sides are going to deal with real things and real issues. The
truth is that the people are tired of the old buncombe, a fact which the
campaigners evidently appreciate. The question in Indiana is whether the
people will believe that the insurgents are strong enough to change the
course of their party, which they admit to have been wrong, and to free
it from influences that have long dominated it, which they confess to be
abhorrent. And that is a question which each man must answer for
himself, with the help of such information as he may be able to get. It
gives us pleasure to commend the speech of Mr. Kern as a straightforward
and manly presentation of the Democratic case.”
Mr. Bryan telegraphed: “Your speech was a powerful statement and much
stronger both in substance and manner to that of your opponent.”
During the next month Mr. Kern was constantly on the stump, speaking
afternoon and night, accompanied usually by correspondents of
Indianapolis papers upon whom the personality of the candidate made an
agreeable impression, if we are to judge by the tone of their articles.
In this way his speeches were given the widest possible publicity. As
the campaign progressed his reiterated questionings of Senator
Beveridge’s position as a progressive led the latter to taking a more
advanced position than in the beginning, and this served to further
embitter the Republican reactionaries. In speech after speech Kern dwelt
upon the senator’s vote in favor of a ship subsidy until toward the
close of the campaign Mr. Beveridge was forced to pledge himself against
a similar performance. Never, perhaps, has Senator Beveridge been more
eloquent, more daring and dashing than in the campaign of 1910. He
preferred to look upon his rôle as that of a crusader, and he did smite
the reactionaries hip and thigh. As the heat of the battle increased
this crusading feature was emphasized until the sentimental reached a
climax in the declaration of Fred Landis, an orator noted for his quaint
humor, that Beveridge, holding the plutocrats at bay, was standing for
“Mary of the vine-clad cottage.” This symbolizing of the humble lot was
instantly seized upon by the senator’s crusading friends, and even the
senator adopted “Mary,” until Kern turned it into ridicule in a speech
at Decatur which caused a roar of laughter from river to lake. In satire
and ridicule Kern had no equal in the state, and he used his weapons on
occasions with much effectiveness. His satire on Mary was copied in _The
New York Sun_, and as long as the present generation lingers on the
stage “Mary of the vine-clad cottage” will bring a smile.
The two candidates, while strenuously engaged on the stump themselves,
had some outside assistance. Mr. Roosevelt swept across northern Indiana
in behalf of Beveridge, but some unpleasantness of a mysterious nature
diverted popular discussion from what he said to the fact that he
refused to leave his car to address a great throng at Richmond. The two
former presidential nominees of the Democratic party, and both personal
friends, Alton B. Parker and Mr. Bryan entered the state in behalf of
Mr. Kern. In his speech at Indianapolis the middle of October Judge
Parker told his hearers that in the senate “we shall need the common
sense, the sturdy honesty and eloquence of John W. Kern.” And about the
same time Bryan was sweeping over the state in a characteristic
whirlwind of oratory, addressing a dozen audiences a day and everywhere
making a special plea for the election of Kern.
Thus in the struggle for the progressive vote the advantage was all with
Kern. There was no possible reason why any progressive of the Democratic
party should vote against Kern, and while the Republican progressives
were intensely loyal to Beveridge they were in the minority, and the
Republican reactionaries were bent upon the destruction of the man who
had refused to bend beneath the Aldrich lash. It is doubtful if any man
has ever been the victim of greater treachery than Beveridge in 1910.
There was scarcely a community where the Republican politicians were not
whetting their knives for his slaughter. The result was easily foreseen
and the Democrats carried the legislature.
The peculiarly venomous and unscrupulous nature of Kern’s enemies was
disclosed after the election by the suggestion that the legislature
might not feel bound by the action of the state convention on the
senatorship. This, of course, did not get very far. The mere suggestion
damned itself, and the leaders alarmed, denounced the idea of such
treachery. Governor Marshall made it clear that he would not sign the
commission of any man but that of the man for whom the majority of the
people had voted. There was probably never the least danger from any
such suggestion. Mr. Kern took no stock in the fears of many of his
friends, and the event vindicated his confidence. When the legislature
met he was promptly elected. Any other result would have wrecked the
Democratic party for a generation.
Thus after thirty-eight years of service and sacrifice he entered into
his reward in the realization of the ambition of his life.