Read Ebook: The life of John Worth Kern by Bowers Claude G Claude Gernade

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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

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.

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 r?le 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 .12 1/2 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 .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.

KOKOMO DAYS--LAWYER AND CITIZEN

As we have seen it was Kern's intention at one time to begin the practice of his profession in Iowa--a plan that was abandoned when the state went overwhelmingly for the "radical program." Before leaving Ann Arbor we have noted his plan to establish an office at Tipton, Indiana. The process of reasoning which soon eliminated Tipton from consideration and led to his opening an office in the county seat of his native county about the first of May, 1869, when he fell seven months short of his twentieth birthday, is set forth in the following letter to Morrow, then at Ann Arbor:

"Since I came home I have done nothing and yet have been awfully busy too. I was at Tipton one day last week looking for a location. That is, I went there for the purpose of looking around. As soon as I got off the train and cast a glance up the principal street I persuaded myself that Tipton was no place for an LL. B. A stump puller or a mud dauber might do an extensive business there. I will open a law office in Kokomo in about ten days. My office will be in the Nixon block. I will go in partnership with John W. Kern, a young man of promise.

"Our folks are all going on a visit to the Old Dominion to be gone all summer. They will start in about a week from to-morrow, and I will be left a disconsolate orphan. In selecting Kokomo as a place wherein to practice I pondered long and well over the matter, and it was only from words of encouragement from a number of the substantial men of the county that I determined. I don't expect to do much at first, but by a close attention to my business I expect in a few years to make my expenses. The people in this part of the country are all lively as crickets.... I only got my books day before yesterday--just two weeks on the road.... The work on the new court house has commenced again. It will be a magnificent edifice...."

The office was opened about the first of May with a complete new set of the Indiana Reports which his father had presented him with. "I still remember how his eyes sparkled," writes Morrow, "when he told me that his father intended to give him a complete set of the reports." Two months later he had less modest notions of his possibilities in his profession. He had participated in several cases and gained confidence, both in his ability to get business and his capacity to handle it. In a letter to Morrow, written early in June, he discloses the budding of social aspirations and for the first time mentions the girl who was soon to become his wife:

"We are now having delightful weather, good roads, and lots of fun. The society in Kokomo is much better than it used to be, and is such that a man who mingles with it much inevitably enjoys himself. I have renewed my old acquaintance with the ladies, and yesterday two of them, Misses Whenett and Hazzard, came up and spent an hour in sweet communion with me in my office. I have an invitation to call on both of them and will certainly avail myself thereof. Although my practice is not so lucrative as I could desire, it is much better than I anticipated when I commenced. I have helped try two cases in the circuit court, three in the mayor's court, and am doing a good business in collecting. I am at least making a very comfortable living. I find that I am somewhat deficient in the practical part of the law, but by hard study and close observation will remedy that before a great while. I am convinced that Kokomo is the best opening for a young man in the west. There is a vast amount of litigation in the county and but comparatively few lawyers. The only trouble I have here is that there is a disposition on the part of some young men in this town to make my office their headquarters. There is one of these d--d lazy hounds sitting here now--making himself more at home than I do. If he doesn't leave in fifteen minutes I will order him out. The initials of this name are X-Y-Z--too trifling to pound sand.... That young man I spoke of a moment ago has just taken his leave. Darn his infernal loafing carcass. He didn't receive much comfort this morning...."

The reference to the disposition of young men to make his office their headquarters probably reflects an indignation he did not really feel. From the moment he opened an office in Kokomo he became the idol of the younger element, and his popularity with "the boys" was to be invaluable in establishing his leadership in politics and his popularity at the bar, but to carry with it disadvantages due to the conviviality of the town and times. It was before the days of clubs, and during the first ten years of his practice his office was made to serve as a club for the younger element, young lawyers, doctors, and others with no such fixed means of support. Here in the evening and on Sunday afternoons the clan regularly gathered to solve the problems of society, indulge in chat, and games. Always a social being, young Kern enjoyed these afternoons and evenings, and friendships were made on these occasions that remained steadfast through life.

From the moment he opened an office the young lawyer was remarkably successful. He was generally looked upon by the people of Howard county as a genius. In eloquence before a jury he surpassed the older members of the bar. And the winsome geniality of his personality extended his acquaintance and increased his popularity. He was followed about by groups of young friends and the older element not only conceded him to be rarely gifted, but gave him every possible encouragement. The town was not so large that the proceedings of the courts were not the subjects of conversation and the lawyer, especially if young, who could make juries laugh and cry, and play pranks on court and bar, and get verdicts, became something of a hero. During the first year or two the most of his cases were tried in the justice of the peace courts, which were then far more important than they are to-day. Here the race went to the man who knew human nature, possessed an eloquent tongue, a quick resourceful mind, and plenty of assurance. Having in mind this period of his career, C. C. Shirley, at one time a member of the law firm of former United States Attorney-General Miller at Indianapolis, but previous to that a member of the Howard bar, writes:

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