When, accompanied by Oscar Henderson and Michael A. Ryan, Mr. Kern reached the state house on the night of the caucus and took up his quarters in the rooms of the lieutenant governor it was with a full realization of his danger. He knew that the votes would be delivered in the dark, and he suspected that with the exception of Lamb the other candidates were in league against him. Almost exhausted, he lay down upon a couch for an hour, too tired to talk, merely nodding his head in reply to questions. During the balloting the scenes about the state house were exciting enough and not a little disgraceful. Members emerging from the room were followed like prisoners by attaches of the legislature in an effort to prevent them from conversing, and one of these narrowly escaped a caning at the hands of Lamb when he poked his head over the candidate’s shoulder in an effort to hear what he was saying to the senator from his own county, who was acting as his floor manager. It required twenty ballots to elect, but the first ballot sounded the knell of Kern’s hopes. Where he had hoped for more than thirty votes he received but twenty-five, although the combined strength of the two next highest, Shively and Lamb only surpassed it by one vote. The second ballot was significant with two desertions--at a time when there could be but one explanation for such desertions, and that plain treachery. On the third ballot, when Lamb went to him, he received thirty-four votes, but instead of starting a rush in his direction he fell to twenty-eight on the next ballot--showing that men playing the cat and mouse act with him had taken flight. At 10 o’clock Kern rose from the couch and paced the corridors smoking, his hands in his side pockets, and on the announcement of the fifth ballot he said “It’s all over.” From that time on it was a case of hoping against hope. As the contest narrowed to Kern and Shively efforts were made to persuade some of the losing candidates to throw their support to Kern, but their attitude clearly disclosed in the case of the men approached that he was the one man they would not benefit if they could help it. At 2 A. M. the door to the caucus room flew open--Shively had been elected, the final vote giving him 42 to Kern’s 36. That was the darkest night in Kern’s career. Through years of sacrifice he had reached--this. He went home that night more completely crushed than he ever was before or after.