Claude G. Bowers

“ This attack came in the course of Lorimer’s speech in his own defense.
This speech was in many respects a remarkable one; not remarkable in that it was convincing, for the speaker made no attempt to discuss the evidence, but in its eloquence and human appeal. It was a masterly appeal to the emotions from a consummate criminal lawyer conscious of a desperate cause and bent on diverting the jury from the irresistible facts to the non-essentials. The manner of the delivery would have rejoiced the heart of a Belasco. It was dramatic, intensely so. ”

“ It is an undisputed fact that in this city, where more than 10,000 labor union men are engaged in daily toil—earning a livelihood and piling up wealth for their employers—all loyal and law-abiding citizens, a great corporation, through its authorized agents, drives out its employees, faithful and honest, for the avowed reason that with true American spirit they declined to surrender their sovereignty and at the bidding of the master give up cherished principles and attachments. ”

“ As a senator of the United States Mr. Kern at once took high rank in Washington and advanced in position and influence with a swiftness that was amazing. His election to the leadership of the controlling party after he had been a senator only a fraction of his first term was wholly without precedent. Hard, intelligent work, combined with personal popularity, won for him a prestige never before accorded to a first termer. He saw through the thin veneer of Washington society and formed an intense dislike for its sham. ”

“ And yet, as the old viking, Andrew Furseth, who knew, said few men were more prone to take unto themselves the troubles and sorrows of others. After hearing the pathetic story of the suffering of the wives and children of the striking miners of Colorado, and looking upon the pictures of some of the slaughtered innocents, he sat smoking in silence for a long while, with the saddest expression on his face and in his eyes that I have ever seen. And that was not a pose—there was only one there to see, and Kern was scarcely conscious of his presence. ”

“ These exhibitions of devotion did not tend to sweeten the temper of his enemies, and when he appeared upon the platform to deliver his speech the hiss was not absent from the general turmoil. Seldom has the great orator appeared so majestic as he did in this fighting speech. There was something strangely hard, steel-like, in the man that those who had heard him frequently on less momentous occasions could not recognize. A more militant figure never faced a hostile crowd—and there were enough enemies in the convention to give it the appearance of hostility. ”

“ His resolution for a senatorial investigation into the conditions in the Paint Creek district where anarchy was apparently in full flower, with the constitutional guaranties of citizens brushed aside, and men being tried for their lives by drumhead courtmartials while the civil courts were open, was the signal for the marshaling of an army of opposition embracing railroads, coal operators, bankers, all the powerful moneyed interests. Never before in history, in a distinct fight between the working classes on the one side and the great interests on the other, had the masses won in the senate. ”

“ This was one of the greatest victories that labor ever won in the Indiana legislature. Since that time the world has moved far in the way of remedial legislation, and the employers’ liability law of 1893 has long been antiquated, but at a time when only two or three states in the union had enacted such legislation it was a signal and significant triumph for the labor cause in Indiana.
This, too, was a service that laboring men never forgot—and this, too, contributed to fix Kern’s status in the minds of the enemies of labor as dangerous and demagogic. ”

“ If the time comes—we all pray it may be averted—when the integrity of this nation is assailed, either from within or from without—if the time comes when the American Republic is brought face to face with the marching armies of the nations beyond the sea, we will need those million of men, for they are men that toil with their hands. They have strong arms. They are the same type of men as that splendid Army of the Republic fifty years ago who won for themselves imperishable renown by their sacrifices in behalf of the Union and the flag. ”

“ I believe that Judge Parker is as earnestly in favor, as earnestly desirous of Democratic success this year as I am.
“There are only a little over a thousand delegates in this convention; there are seven million Democrats between the oceans. There are millions of Democrats scattered from one end of this country to the other who at this hour are all looking with aching hearts upon the signs of discord that prevail here when there ought to be forerunners of victory in the shouts of this convention. Is there a man here who does not earnestly desire harmony to the end that there may be victory? ”

“ Thus at a time when the public, kept in the dark as to the horrible conditions in West Virginia through the deliberate suppression of the most sensational news, Kern was being pilloried throughout the country as a demagogic sensationalist, in league with lawlessness, and not above stooping to ordinary falsehoods. The conservative element, prone to suspect all strikers, and exonerate all against whom strikes are aimed, was being prejudiced against him. The masses of the people were not aroused because they did not have the facts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must be a startling story—a story of greed fattening upon the hunger of children, of the trampling of inalienable rights, of the kicking to death of unborn babes by brutes untouched by the law, of the murder of women, and the shooting of unarmed men in the night—a story of tyranny and brutality as infamous and cruel as was ever born of the dynasty of the Romanoffs. ”

“ John W. Kern served as Democratic leader of the senate during a period when some of the most important legislation in the history of the country was enacted into law. With the people’s interest ever uppermost in his mind, he marshaled the forces of his party with infinite patience and tact, and always with self-effacement. He was loved and respected by his colleagues, regardless of party, and always possessed the confidence of the public and the administration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While it is true that ‘John W. Kern is the idol of the young democracy of the state,’ he is no less a favorite of us old Democrats. He is young, able and progressive, just such a man as we need. John W. Kern is a born leader. To be sure he is young, but he has got a mighty old head on him, and it will be seen that he don’t need much pushing to get to the front. ”

“ Do you make good citizens of men by denying them their rights? Do you command the respect and the patriotism of the toilers of this land by turning them away when they come into this great tribunal and simply ask that the light be turned on, to the end that the people may know as to whether or not God reigns and the Constitution still lives, and whether they and their kind are to be despoiled of their heritage of liberty? ”

“ So in all ages have said the nations of the world in their hours of trial. The strength of those great mountains woven into the warp and woof of his sturdy ancestry was John Kern’s heritage; the serene peace of their silent places was typified in the quality of calmness which was so marked in him; in his heart was the low deep music of their murmuring waters, and in his soul was the majesty of those everlasting hills.
“A sweet, a gentle, and withal a masterful life has come to its close, a nation has lost a leader and a statesman, a family has lost a father and a friend ”

“ It is outrageous that the representative of a great corporation, created by public favor, clothed with the extraordinary power of eminent domain, grown fat and rich by favorable legislation, should have the hardihood to strike at the liberty of its workingmen by demanding of them that they give up membership in their unions, to which they are as devotedly attached as they are to church or party, under penalty of dismissal from employment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is probable that no Democratic convention in the history of Indiana has ever been so distinguished in the personnel of its participants as was that which convened in English’s Opera House in Indianapolis in the closing days of June, 1884. Although a Democratic president had not crossed the threshold of the White House since Buchanan, the party in Indiana had never lost its courage or its militancy, and it had never been so spirited as during the summer of the year of its first national triumph in almost a quarter of a century. ”

“ Senators, these million men who voted the Socialist ticket last November are the men who ought to be full of that kind of patriotism in time of war that would impel them to go out and walk on the uttermost ridge of battle, to peril their lives in defense of their country and their country’s flag because they love their country, because they venerate the laws of the land. ”

“ At the time of his return to Indiana the great debate to determine the position the Democratic party was to take on the money question had commenced. The administration of Grover Cleveland had lost the confidence of the major part of the party in the state. The bond issue stuck in the craws of the masses. The silver wave was sweeping over the country, destined to leave many wrecks in its wake and to throw upon the rocks many new lights of party leading. In Indiana the silver forces were militantly aggressive and were busily engaged in perfecting an organization which was to make history. ”

“ During his participation in the discussion Kern scornfully assailed two sophistries dear to the corruptionist and{224} urged in defense of the accused—the idea that the payment of money to men “to work” for a candidate is anything other than the bribing of the man, and the suggestion that the payment of money to an editor for editorial commendation of a candidate is anything other than a bribe of the most sinister nature. These two evils—the debauching of the voter and the subsidization of the press he looked upon as the gravest danger possible to free institutions. ”

“ A Composite Portrait I TO the great majority who knew Senator Kern as he appeared in court, in social circles, in the free and easy environment of convention and campaign, his geniality created the impression that he always preferred company to solitude. To the comparative few who knew him in the routine intercourse of daily contact he was exactly the opposite—one of the most reticent of men, given to the keeping of his own councils. Few men have disclosed their mental processes to a less degree. ”

“ After I had put Senator Kern in nomination against Parker, he took the platform and made a most forcible and eloquent plea for harmony in the convention. He called attention to the great issues involved and to the importance of presenting a united front. He then presented a list of names.... He called upon Parker, who sat just in front of him, to join him in withdrawing in favor of any one of these men in order that the convention might operate without discord. It was a dramatic moment. Such an opportunity seldom comes to a man. ”

“ Thus the election of Senator Kern to the leadership of the majority at the beginning of the first Wilson administration, with all that followed in keeping with the meaning of that selection, marked a revolutionary change in the United States senate, broke down the fetish of the seniority rule, smashed superannuated precedents and traditions, made difficult if not impossible the domination of the body by a small coterie of men entrenched in powerful chairmanships, and did more toward the democratization of the senate than had been done in half a century. ”

“ Socialism has grown in this country until more than a million men cast their votes for the Socialist ticket at the last election. The fire of Socialism is fed by such fuel as this West Virginia decision, and the lawless action there of men charged with the execution of the laws. Socialism grows and will grow in exact proportion as wrongdoing is countenanced and upheld, not only by the strong legislative forces of the country, but especially when they are backed up by the judicial arm of the government. ”