Chapter X: 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.