His first inclination was to refuse the nomination. But the fact that it was so manifestly the spontaneous will of the party and the urgent insistence of the avowed candidates that he face a duty finally persuaded him against his will. Almost in a flash all his plans for a peaceful life in the practice of his profession were ruins at his feet, and he again, as so many times before, put on the armor and prepared for battle. III The senatorial campaign in Indiana in 1910 was unique in the political history of the state. Senator Albert J. Beveridge was the nominee of the Republican party for re-election, although his position with his own party was precariously insecure. He had entered public life as an aggressive and brilliant exponent of the more pronounced Hamiltonian theories, and had been a consistent champion of Big Business, an audacious defender and eulogist of the trust, an eloquent advocate of the protective tariff, and in other ways, viewed from the Democratic viewpoint, a peculiarly advanced and defiant reactionary. But he had rebelled against the Aldrich senatorial machine when it threw even discretion in the winds in its arrogant determination to force the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill upon the country, and had joined Dolliver, Cummins, Bristow, Clapp and Lafollette in the fight against it. This he had done with his usual brilliancy and eloquence, and he had thus incurred the deadly enmity of the reactionary element of his party in the state. Unhappily for him this was the predominant element. His one hope under the circumstances was that his courageous act of rebellion would rally to his support the progressive element of the Democratic party and thus make up for any loss from the Republicans. This plan, however, contemplated the creation of the impression among the progressives that the election of a Democratic legislature would result in the election of a reactionary to the senate, and his supporters had two or three men in mind to hold forth to the people as likely beneficiaries of a Democratic victory. 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.