Kern

“ There was a measured beating of the air above Kern, and he looked up to see the hunchback hovering on silky red wings above him. Sunlight flashed on a bared knife-blade. Gerd gestured down. And there was something about his poise in the air, the way he handled his muscular, twisted body, that warned Kern not to precipitate a struggle. It occurred to him for the first time that fighting in midair must be an art requiring skills he had never learned—yet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No one is so well qualified to tell the story of John Kern, the campaigner and man, as members of the newspaper fraternity who were assigned to “cover” him on many a tour, and called regularly at his office for many years. There was something in the temperament of the average newspaper man that appealed to him, and for practically all the reporters and correspondents who came into contact with him he formed personal friendship that was very real. ”

“ The updraft caught her beneath the pinions and bore her aloft on a beautiful sweep, her pale hair blowing like a banner. In midair she twisted to beckon, and Kern laughed in sheer delight and ran to follow her, spreading his dark wings so that at the fourth stride, with a leap, suddenly he was airborne. It was a glorious feeling to fly without shame or need of concealment. He scarcely heard the beat of wings behind him as the hunchback took to the air in their wake. The joy of flying in company was great enough just now to shut out all other thoughts from Kern’s mind. ”

“ Kern, flying with the rest over the rolling hilltops with the vast glass cloud of the Mountain shadowing the horizon, timed his flight to the pace of the slowest so that he might talk in midair with the wingless people in the carriers. And close beside him Elje and Gerd hovered, watching almost jealously every expression on the faces of the speakers.
“What do they say, Kern?” Elje asked breathlessly, timing her words to the rhythm of her wings. “Are—are you sure these people are human? ”

“ Kern in his long political career not one ever disappointed him. When John W. Kern was the principal figure in the noise and music of the feast the newspaper men with him were never forgotten. Reception committees might try to drag him away, but he would not be dragged.
“‘There will be no show,’ he used to tell the eager committeemen, each striving for the honor of leading him to his carriage or to the speaker’s stand, ‘until the orchestra is ready. I want the newspaper men put where they can see and hear.’ And he would not move until the correspondents with him were provided for. ”

“ That another operative sat now on Kern's stool and manipulated Kern's machine might appear natural enough, as the superintendent, it seemed, had insisted with his sour smile. But this was not to consider Kern's exceptional skilfulness, known and recognized throughout the Heth Works. Replace a girl who could bunch sixty-five hundred cheroots in a single day? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ One did not question one’s companions too closely in this house of the mutations.
“You’ve been with us two years, Kern,” she was saying now. “Only two years. You don’t know yet how strong we are, or how much we can accomplish among us. Bruce Hallam knows what he’s doing, Kern. He never works on theories. Or if he does, the theories become truth. He has a mind like that. You don’t know us, Kern!” ”

“ 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,{9} 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. ”

“ Throughout this crisis Senator Kern played a more important part than appeared upon the surface. His popularity with organized labor made it possible for him to bring some influence to bear upon their attitude, and he was kept in touch with all the conferences of the men through reports submitted to him after each meeting by men participating in them. ”

“ 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.{7}”
About this time he entered the Old Kokomo Normal, an educational institution much superior to most of the Indiana schools of that period. ”

“ Kern said. “But they have powers none of us know. I think our coming marks a turning place in the history of your race, Elje—Gerd. You can kill us or abandon us and go on as you always have, or you can believe me and help us, and fight this time with a chance of winning. Will you do it?”
Elje was silent for a moment. Then she laughed and stood up suddenly with a flutter of her wings.
“I’ll go along with you and talk to your friends,” she said. “If they’re as you say—yes, Kern, I’ll believe you. For the Mountain never has changed human flesh. It can touch our minds, but not our bodies. ”

“ Elje told Kern as they swept forward. “Many of us died before we learned the way through them. Now we have a shelter where no one can follow us who hasn’t a guide.”
Abruptly she ceased to speak. Kern turned a startled glance and saw her reel in midair, throwing back her head so that the clear line of her throat was white and taut against the blue sky. Then, without a word, suddenly she crumpled in full flight. An instant longer her wings sustained her and she hung limp from the spread pinions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Kern felt change all about him, in the substance of the Mountain itself. A vast, imponderable shifting of the clouded glass, a falling apart of the atoms which composed it, as its soul of fire had fallen. The opalescent stuff was a fog—a mist—a thin, dissipating gas which no longer supported him. The cold of clear air struck terribly upon his fiery limbs as the Mountain dissolved from about him. He convulsed upon himself in a knot of flame that seemed to consume itself and to cease—to cease—
Everything was blank around him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It would be impossible to speak of Senator Kern’s successful regime as a leader of the greatest law-making body in the world without paying a high tribute to the personal equation.
“His magnetic and lovable personality held sway in the senate and made him the greatest conciliator among all the leaders that held that position of high responsibility. In ironing out differences and bringing contending elements together he was the master. ”

“ It was in connection with labor legislation that Kern at this time fashioned his reputation as a public man—a reputation that was to make him ardent friends and powerful foes. Throughout his life his instincts had always impelled him to take up the cudgels for the lowly and oppressed. Even before entering the state senate he had written many bills for the legislative committee of the state federation of labor and the working classes naturally looked to him for leadership. ”

“ John W. Kern{260} has been faithful every day during these sixteen years. It has cost him time, it has cost him money, and it has cost him the wear of body and of mind. He has been giving freely of all that he had. Four years ago, when the foundation was laid for the present victory, it was John W. Kern who stood with me and helped to bring into the campaign the idea of publicity before the election which has now swept the country until even the Republican party was compelled by public opinion to give it unanimous indorsement only a few weeks ago. ”

“ Still it was not Senator Kern’s purpose to embarrass Judge Parker, in whose personal devotion to the party he had the most perfect confidence. He did entertain the hope that the New York jurist would{268} meet him on the ground of a general conciliation. But when it became apparent that Parker was so situated that he could not respond to what must have been his natural impulse, and Kern made his appeal to Charles F. Murphy it was not so much with the thought that he might accept as with the intention to placing the responsibility and giving it “a local habitation and a name.” ”

“ Kern has more than average ability. If he shall continue to be a student, as we know he has been for several years, he will gain eminence.
“What everybody says must be true. We have never heard a single person speak of the bride except in the highest terms of praise. She is intelligent, domestic in her habits and preferences and very good. ”

“ W. H. Blodgett, the veteran political writer of The Indianapolis News, and Kin Hubbard, the cartoonist and creator of “Abe Martin,” who frequently accompanied Kern upon his tours sketching the crowds, and whose work was a delight to the senator. These men knew the Kern of the campaign more intimately than the politicians{422} for he unburdened himself to them with greater freedom and his confidence was never betrayed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hatred burned and bubbled all around Kern’s awareness as he strove coil against coil with the enemy. But it did not touch him any more. He felt no fear. And when he began to realize that he could not vanquish this being by strength alone, not even then did he feel fear. Emotion was gone from him. Coil by coil he tested the thing he strove with, and coil by coil he found it braced irresistibly against his greatest strength. ”

“ He will not be regarded as an unknown or an accident. I watched the convention as it nominated Kern and mingled in the groups engaged in the preliminary discussions. No one was ever nominated in an atmosphere freer from dickering and trading. The galleries were for Kern and the galleries have a curious faculty of feeling the national pulse.”
He remained in Denver for a time so as to reach Lincoln just in time for the meeting of the national committee at Fairview on July 14th, and during the interval was kept busy conferring with party leaders and with social engagements. ”

“ I think—I know—if the Mountain could reach into our bodies and make that tiny change that would open our mind to it, then it would win. But it can’t. It can’t alter our bodies except by killing us. If I see with my own eyes these companions of Kern’s, I’ll know there is a power greater than the Mountain. And we’ll fight together, Kern!”
A little later, floating high above the nest of hills which cradled the village, Kern rocked on spread wings and pressed his eyes tightly shut, thinking with all the strength of his mind:
“Byrna, Byrna! Answer me, Byrna! Help me find you. Byrna, do you hear?” ”