Senator Kern entered the senate at a time when the dawn for the Democracy was breaking in the east; the long night of wandering in the wilderness was over and the day had come. In the opposite end of the capitol, the Democrats, with a triumphant majority, had made possible the election to the speakership of Champ Clark, one of the most uncompromising of Democrats and one of the most picturesque floor leaders that any party had ever had in the house. The Payne-Aldrich tariff bill had wrought such havoc that many of the old familiar figures of the congress had been swept into private life by the flood of popular indignation. The bitter fight that had been made by the Republican rebels in the senate against the iniquities of the tariff measure had left a once militant party in a state of demoralization, born of mutual distrust a desire for vengeance. There were no longer two parties in the senate--there were three, and the two of these counted as Republican were more bitter against each other than against the common enemy across the aisle. This was to be impressively disclosed early in the session, when the death of the venerable Fry of Maine necessitated the election of a president pro tempore and the Republicans with their numerical advantage were unable to muster a majority for Senator Gallenger, the caucus nominee, because the progressives, as they then termed themselves, insisted on voting for Senator Clapp. To intensify the Republican dissensions, the action of President Taft in calling an extraordinary session for the consideration of the Canadian Reciprocity bill was as gall and wormwood to the extreme exponents of a high protective tariff. The Republicans were surly, and hopeless, disorganized, distrustful, demoralized.