The life of John Worth Kern

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.”

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.

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:

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.

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.”

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:

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.

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.

CHAPTER II

Kokomo Days—Lawyer and Citizen

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:

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:

That with all his precocity he was still essentially a boy during the early days of his practice is illustrated in a story affecting Rawson Vaile, a leader of the bar, who had been editor of the Indianapolis Journal before the civil war. Mr. Vaile was a polished gentleman, an Amherst graduate, something of an exotic for the time and place, who bore himself with great dignity, dressed immaculately, and always wore a silk hat. One day in court—the court room crowded with Kern’s young followers—while the young lawyer was in the midst of an argument to the court, he observed on the table before him the silk tie of the opposing attorney. Simulating much excitement, he brought his clenched fist down upon Vaile’s cherished hat with such force as to mash it completely. The young men in the court room who knew that it was not accidental, but a carefully planned diversion for their benefit, roared their approval, and so great was the indignation of the court that but for the splendid acting of Kern in assuring the court of the accidental nature of the incident he would have been fined for contempt.

In the little cases in the squire’s courts he fought as stubbornly as he ever did in later life in the federal courts of the country. One case—a suit in replevin over a red shawl—is still remembered because the tenacity of the boy lawyer cost the defendant $700 before the case was closed. Before he had been in practice a year, if he was not the ablest lawyer at the Howard bar, he was easily, among all the lawyers, the idol of the multitude.

II

During the first year or two at the bar Kern was not giving his attention wholly to the practice of his profession. In less than a year he had taken his position among the political leaders of the community, and from that time on during his fifteen years in Kokomo his political and professional careers were so interwoven, and he distinguished himself to such a degree in both, that I shall, for the sake of continuity, treat of his political activities in a separate chapter. Even politics and the law did not consume all his time. As we have seen in his letters to Morrow, he had taken a keen interest in the “feminines” from the moment of his arrival in Kokomo. This interest soon centered on Anna Hazzard, daughter of a well-to-do business man of the community. The nature of his wooing is indicated in an incident still remembered. On the occasion of a Sunday school picnic given by the Baptist church of his native village, he drove with Miss Hazzard to Alto, and finding a big cake offered for sale to the highest bidder, he determined that the prize should go to his partner of the evening. The contest was a lively one, but the young lawyer met all competitors with a raise, and the result was that he secured the cake for the neat sum of $30.

It was soon after this that he announced in a letter to Morrow that he had bought “the Stewart house” on Main street for something over $1,600, his father going security, and with some show of pride described it as “one of the prettiest pieces of property in town.” “This,” he adds, “may look to you like business. Well, it does.” And in a letter to Morrow October 18, 1870, he concludes: “Give my regards to Swartz and Stringer. Tell them that on the 10th of November all that is mortal of J. W. K. is to pass away, as that is the day the event takes place which tears him from the realms of single blessedness.”

The Kokomo Tribune, in announcing the marriage, which took place at the bride’s home, said:

A rather unusual announcement, but very gracious considering that for three months before the same paper had covered its editorial page with vicious attacks on young Kern the politician.

III

After the election of 1870 and his marriage the young lawyer went forward by leaps and bounds in his profession. In the fall of 1870, before he had reached his majority, he was employed as special prosecutor in a sensational murder case involving a prominent family of Kokomo. Before this Kokomo had suspected that he was a brilliant criminal lawyer. Afterward it knew it. For in this case the youth of less than twenty-one found himself pitted against two of the giants of the Indiana bar, Thomas A. Hendricks, his political idol, and Major Jonathan W. Gordon, considered by many the greatest criminal lawyer and advocate who ever practiced in the courts of the commonwealth. It is related that during the trial, which was held in an adjoining county, Kern became careless in his attendance in court, and there was a disposition to consider him out of the case. In indignant mood he sauntered into the court room just as an argument as to the admissibility of evidence was being made by both Hendricks and Gordon. Much was involved in the point and the two legal giants had carefully prepared for the battle. At the conclusion of their arguments Kern arose, without having looked into a single book, or left his seat after hearing the issue, and delivered what was considered one of the most convincing arguments heard in the case, and the court sustained him. After that he took part in all the arguments that arose, and always with brilliant success. At that time he made of the two great lawyers pitted against him life-long friends and admirers. Hendricks took him aside and with a great show of interest advised him as to his course, and it was on this occasion that the great politician made the prediction that “the time will come when that young man will be the leader of the Democratic party in Indiana.”

From that time on he was engaged on one side or the other of every murder case and of most of the important criminal cases tried in Howard or the adjoining counties. He developed with remarkable rapidity into a great trial lawyer. His eloquence, his knowledge of fundamental principles, his quick grasp of the situation, made him a dangerous opponent for the most experienced. In those days he was careless in the preparation of his cases. It was said of him that he could go into a case with one day’s notice and apparently be as well prepared as though he had given six months to preparation. Judge Harness, his last partner in Kokomo, found him “a master in marshaling his facts and in getting everything out of a case there was in it—and frequently much more.” He was an expert in handling witnesses, especially in cross-examination. He was dramatic, resourceful, a master of strategy. In one case where his client was accused of having stolen a pocketbook, he secured a wallet as nearly like the one in question as possible, and presenting this to the prosecuting witness pressed him for a positive identification. The witness walked into the trap and identified the substitute pocketbook positively as his own, on which Kern presented the pocketbook in question, thereby putting the prosecution to rout. In another case he was positive that the prosecuting witness was lying and he carried through a fine bit of dramatic acting with the desired result. Without a particle of previous evidence of the witness to rely upon, he theatrically opened the drawer of the desk before him and pulled out a roll of blank paper. Holding this in his hand and looking the witness in the eye he demanded fiercely—“Did you not on a certain occasion testify so and so in this matter?” The witness, frightened at the manner of the lawyer and suspecting that he had been trapped completely, wilted and confessed that he had testified differently before.

While capable of tricks of this nature he was not known as a “tricky lawyer” in the usual acceptance of the term. He was scrupulously ethical from the day he received his first case. This knowledge of human nature which made him a power in cross-examination made him almost irresistible before the jury in argument. Here he was the master. He ran the gamut of the emotions, passing from wit and humor to pathos, and then to satire, and then denunciation, keeping the jury in laughter or tears. Often he was able to literally ridicule a case out of court.

During the Kokomo days when he was prominent as a criminal lawyer he was at different times pitted against many of the giants of the bar. To attempt an enumeration of even the more prominent cases would be irksome. Strangely enough some of his greatest speeches in criminal cases were for the prosecution. He was of such a kindly disposition, so easily touched by suffering, and his sympathies were so readily reached that among the leading criminal lawyers of those days he seemed the least adapted to the role of prosecutor, and yet he probably figured more frequently as prosecutor than any of the others. The older people of Tipton county still remember his powerful argument and remarkably forceful peroration in closing for the prosecution in the murder case of State vs. Doles in Tipton in 1882. But a more interesting case is that of State vs. Hawkins, in which he appeared as special prosecutor at Kokomo in what was probably his last great criminal case in his native county, in 1885. Young Hawkins had been attentive to a young woman who had been taken out for a drive into the country by one of his friends and insulted. On returning to town the girl hastened to Hawkins with the story and without more ado he armed himself and went in search of the friend. After a few words Hawkins drew his gun and shot his victim down in cold blood. The family of Hawkins, realizing the seriousness of the situation, employed Cooper & Harness and O’Brien & Shirley, leading local lawyers, and instructed them to engage some famous criminal lawyer from Chicago or Indianapolis. Because Senator Voorhees had been remarkably successful in murder cases involving wrongs to women, he was engaged as the leading lawyer for the defense. Such vigorous steps to free the murderer of his son led the father of the victim, who had befriended Kern in his younger days, to engage him as special prosecutor. The case attracted state-wide attention. There were circumstances in the case differentiating it so radically from the cases of Mary Harris and Johnson that Voorhees was considerably embarrassed, but the matchless forensic orator exerted himself to the utmost. The closing arguments of Voorhees and Kern were made the same day, the older man speaking in the afternoon with his customary eloquence to a court room packed to suffocation, with great crowds packed tightly in the corridors outside and down the stairway. Kern closed at night in the presence of an equally great crowd. Never, perhaps, did he speak with greater power or eloquence. In the early part of his argument he turned his batteries of ridicule upon Voorhees in an effort to overcome the prestige of his name. So keen was this ridicule that Voorhees, hardened though he was by the blows of innumerable forensic battles, and until then, a warm friend of the younger man, squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, and turning to one of his co-counsel, asked, “Is he trying to insult me in this community?” Assured to the contrary, he settled back in his chair for a while, but, unable to stand it longer, he retired to the judge’s room, where he remained during the rest of the speech. “Mr. Kern,” writes A. B. Kirkpatrick, then prosecuting attorney, “was at his best and held the jury and audience spellbound as he swept everything before him by his irresistible logic and eloquence. At its conclusion, Senator Voorhees said with a qualifying adjective that it was a shame to have a man like John Kern make the closing speech in such a case. Kern easily won the laurels over the senator.”

The defendant was found guilty, and there are reasons to believe that Voorhees never forgave Kern’s ridicule of him, and in time found a way to make his displeasure felt.

During his Kokomo days the bar of Howard and surrounding counties, while having its full share of backwoodsmen, was strong in a number of exceptionally able lawyers. Kern’s practice extended over Howard, Tipton, Grant, Miami and Cass counties. In those days he frequently crossed swords with D. D. Pratt, Horace P. Biddle, Judge Nathaniel R. Lindsay, McDowell Van Devanter, father of the present justice of the United States Supreme Court, Col. Asbury Steele, R. T. St. John, Joseph A. Lewis, Nathan Overman, Joel F. Vaile, now the leader of the Denver bar, Dan Waugh, and of course all the leaders of the Howard bar. As a criminal lawyer he surpassed them all and held his own with the greatest in the state. “As a criminal lawyer,” writes A. B. Kirkpatrick, “Kern in his prime was perhaps not excelled in Indiana. I have seen Senator Voorhees, Major Gordon, John S. Duncan, Henry N. Spaan and Major Blackburn in the trial of criminal cases and in my opinion none of them excelled Kern.”

Such was his status professionally during his Kokomo days.

IV

The Kokomo of Kern’s time was one of the live-wire towns of the state. He has himself described it in his address at the James Whitcomb Riley birthday dinner many years afterward, when he said: “And where did I first meet Riley? Where do you suppose I met him? Why, in Kokomo, of course! Where else could I have met him? What was he doing in Kokomo? Why did he come to Kokomo? Because the afflatus was in Kokomo in those days. The divine afflatus, the prophetic afflatus, afflatus in unbroken and original packages; some in broken and aboriginal packages.”

When the sign “John W. Kern, Attorney at Law,” was hung out in 1870 there were no factories as now and no artisan class. It was above the average of county seats at the time and yet they were just beginning to build streets and it was not an extraordinary sight to see wagons mired in the thoroughfares. There were no clubs, but the “poor man’s club” was all too much in evidence, and the Clinton House, standing on the present site of the Frances Hotel, was a favorite gathering place for the gossips. It was a paradise for the gambler—the happy hunting grounds of the sporty element who flocked from afar, flamboyant in its cheap finery, unafraid of the law or the authorities, plucking the innocents without let or hindrance, crowding the “poor man’s clubs” with boisterous company. And just beyond this element in a sort of a mysterious haze loomed a more sinister element supposed to be engaged in transactions frowned upon by the laws of state and nation. This was the situation during the first twelve of the fifteen years of Kern’s residence in the town. Then something happened that brought about a cleansing. For many years the most powerful citizen, politically, among the lower strata was a physician, who was highly skilled in his profession, and known professionally over the state. He never charged the very poor for his services and thus he ingratiated himself into their affections, and he exercised a sway over the sporty element which was long hard to analyze. Many feared him without knowing why. One day, while mayor of the city, the police were informed by a traitor in his camp, who apparently feared him, that he proposed to burn the flour mill belonging to one of his enemies, and carry a leaking sack of flour to the home of another of his enemies, feared by the doctor, with the view to getting him out of the way by way of the penitentiary on the charge of arson. The police appeared at the mill as the doctor emerged with his sack of flour, and in his attempt to escape he was shot down. The incident created a sensation. The community was divided as to his guilt or innocence, and to this day there are some who cling to his memory as to the memory of a martyr. But the fact was developed that the prominent physician, potential politician and mayor was the head and brains of a lawless gang which had been under the observation of the federal secret service. His death scattered the gang, and with the gang the criminal element which revolved about it. The gamblers took to their heels. The new Kokomo emerged. But it was in the old Kokomo that John Kern passed his younger days.

It was in the midst of this environment that he was left alone, master of his own destiny, at the age of twenty. For almost immediately after he began the practice of his profession his father, hearkening to the call of the Old Dominion, and taking his daughter Sally with him, bought a home in Carvin’s Cove, a basin seven miles from Roanoke, and so surrounded by spurs of the Blue Ridge Mountains that there is but one entrance to the cove for vehicles. Here during the remainder of his life he lived the life of a recluse with his books, dogs, poultry and cattle, going every Sunday to church to teach a Sunday school. Here in the Cove Alum church on the frequent occasions of John Kern’s visits, the father listened proudly to the eloquence of the son he idolized.

But the young lawyer was always surrounded by a multitude of friends, good, bad and indifferent. His witticisms were passed about. His practical jokes were laughed over. His popularity was extraordinary. He was eagerly welcomed in every home. A slight figure, he had temper and it was known that he would “fight at the drop of a hat,” no matter how much larger and heavier his adversary.

Recognized as the orator of the community, the young lawyer was in constant demand as a speaker on all imaginable occasions, from old settlers’ meetings and Sunday school picnics to mass meetings to serve some public end.

We shall now see in tracing the story of John Kern’s political activities in the Kokomo days that when he paid tribute at a mass meeting to Garfield, the martyred president, he spoke as the long-recognized Democratic leader of the community.

CHAPTER III

As Democratic Leader of Howard, 1870-1884

The conditions in Howard county in 1870 were not such as to justify high hopes of political preferment on the part of young men affiliated with the Democratic party. The normal Republican majority ranged from 800 to 1,400, and, considering the population of the county at that time, this margin of advantage constituted an insurmountable barrier to Democratic aspirants for office. Nevertheless there were among the active Democrats of that day men of unusual political capacity, and several of these were destined to sit upon the bench of the judicial district and to find their fealty rewarded by election to state offices. The year that young Kern plunged into the war from which he was only to emerge almost half a century later “upon his shield” the Democratic prospects were no better than they had been since the civil war, but, owing to the growing disaffection in the Republican ranks, and the issue of “reform” then coming to the fore, the more optimistic favored an aggressive contest. In March, 1870, the Democratic County Central Committee was called for the purpose of organization and the determination of the much-mooted problem as to whether a straight Democratic ticket would be worth the ammunition. The reports of the meeting indicated that young Kern, not then of age, and one other man spoke earnestly in favor of a fight. And it was on this occasion that he was given his first official recognition by the party, of which he was to become the leader, by election to the secretaryship of the committee.

In conformity with the plan then decided upon the county convention met in August to nominate a full ticket. The Kokomo Tribune, an uncompromising Republican paper, in describing the convention, said that “on Saturday a hundred or more barefoots came together in this city and bunglingly went through with a convention.” The proceedings of the convention indicate that young Kern was probably the center of attention, making many of the motions which directed the course of the delegates, and finally being chosen chairman of the committee on resolutions and entrusted with the formulation of the party platform. These resolutions were written largely by him, and after a discussion in which he participated were adopted much in the form in which they were submitted. While there was something of the extravagant in part of the phrasing and something of the buncombe seemingly inseparable from party platforms to this day, these resolutions are indicative of views which in a broad sense were never abandoned by the then boy chairman.

A part of these resolutions were evidently intended to meet local prejudices at the time, but in view of the absence from Howard county of any appreciable laboring, or artisan class, the prominence given their interests show that Kern’s special championing of their rights in later life was not of new birth. The resolutions were adopted, and the convention directed its attention to the nomination of a candidate for the legislature.

One candidate had presented himself, an old farmer, who does not appear to have appealed to the leaders as available. At any rate C. N. Pollard, then a prominent lawyer and destined to the judgeship, placed young Kern in nomination. The boy leader instantly demurred, saying that while he “loved to work for the time-honored principles of the party” he was too young, had never even voted, and therefore respectfully declined. Pollard in rejoinder insisted that the reasons given were not sufficient and ended by demanding the services of the young lawyer in the campaign. Milton Bell, a rising lawyer, followed in rejecting Kern’s reasons, declaring as a reason for his nomination that he was “young, vigorous, fresh and able,” and comparing him to the improved needle gun. Others followed along the same line, and, notwithstanding the vigorous protest of the one avowed candidate for the place, Kern was nominated by a vote of 39 to 8.

This remarkable action in nominating a boy not yet of age was not a mere impulse of the convention. Throughout the summer of 1870 the young lawyer had been impressing himself upon the community, both by his speeches and writings. Just before the convention met he had established a reputation as an orator, and The Kokomo Democrat, in its issue of August 3, in referring to one of his speeches, had said: “We heard it. Considering the intense heat of the evening and the great disadvantage under which he spoke it was an eloquent and able effort and so regarded. The court house was crowded and the audience went away entertaining as high an opinion of the Kokomo boy as ever.” And during the summer he had written articles for The Democrat over his initials calculated to fire the Democratic heart.

The announcement in little more than a week after the convention of the “speaking dates of John W. Kern” with the postscript that “other speakers would accompany him” bears witness to the seriousness with which he accepted the duty thrust upon him, and it was not long until The Kokomo Tribune, the Republican organ, found it advisable to devote much of its editorial space to attempted refutations of his arguments and to neutralizing the danger from his personal popularity with appeals for party regularity. The Republicans had nominated against him Captain Kirkpatrick, an idol of the soldiers, who were strong in Howard, and among Kern’s first moves was to challenge his opponent to a series of joint debates—an invitation that was declined. It was the year of Sedan, many citizens of German extraction lived in Howard, and it is interesting in the light of the present great war to find that sentiment in Indiana was quite generally with the Prussians because of the prevalent dislike for Louis Napoleon. Early in the campaign Kern spoke at a German celebration and The Tribune, evidently concerned over the possible effect of his speech, hastened to say: