If Utica was to be remembered by him as the scene of a pleasing act of chivalric courtesy, it was also to be associated with the most painful shock of the campaign. It was here that a telegram reached him announcing the serious condition of young John and summoning him to the bedside. He immediately canceled all engagements and left for Indianapolis. Reaching home in the early morning, worn with fatigue of travel and speaking, he took up his vigil by the sick boy’s bed, scarcely leaving his side. The next few days found the vice-presidential nominee in the sick room. On October 26th he arranged to keep in constant touch with his home, and left for a week of strenuous campaigning in Indiana. By using steam train, interurbans and automobiles he was able to cover the state from the river to the lake making many speeches each day. On the Friday night before the election he spoke to the people of Indianapolis at a great meeting at Tomlinson hall. During the days immediately preceding Andrew Carnegie had gravely announced his adherence to the cause of Taft and Protection, and this announcement, which was unnecessary, was followed by one equally unnecessary from John D. Rockefeller to the same effect. These announcements appealed to Mr. Kern’s sense of humor, and he discussed them with biting sarcasm. Mr. Kern’s close of his Indiana campaign at Evansville on Saturday night was not to mark the end of his labors. On the insistence of the national committee he was hurried into northern Ohio for a number of speeches on the day before the election, and after a meteoric rush through numerous towns he spoke his last word at night at an important meeting at Toledo. But as he turned toward home that night it was not of the battle of ballots on the morrow that he was thinking. V It was a sad group that gathered in the Kern library the night of the election. The returns were not the cause nor did they create much interest for the immediate family, which was alone; they were more intent on the news that the doctors and nurse were bringing from the room above where John, Jr., was fighting what then seemed to be a hopeless battle. He was not expected to live through the night. The fact that the little warrior’s mind was keen and alert that night only added a poignancy to the pathos. He won his battle; and on the morning after when Mrs. Kern entered the room the little fellow looked up anxiously: “Mother, was father elected?” Mrs. Kern hesitated a moment and then told the truth: “No, John, your father was defeated.” The boy closed his eyes tight and with the bitterness of childhood exclaimed: “Uh! What fools the people of the United States are to turn down such a man as father.”