It was in connection with his work on this committee that Senator Kern met the greatest embarrassment of his senatorial career, resulting in some unjust criticism on the part of his political enemies in Indiana. The determination of the personnel of the important Finance committee, it was his desire that his colleague, Senator Shively, should have a place on this committee. Not only did the senior senator desire the assignment, but he was peculiarly fitted for it by a lifetime of study of fiscal legislation. No man connected with the public life of Indiana for a generation had possessed such a mastery of the intricacies of tariff legislation. He had unhappily been deprived of the opportunity of participating actively in the discussions of the Payne-Aldrich bill by the physical breakdown which had followed almost immediately his entrance to the senate, and he had felt it keenly. But his special qualifications for service on this committee were well known by all his colleagues, and he had the further qualification of having served on the Ways and Means committee of the house. For some reason a stubborn opposition to the appointment of Senator Shively developed, and to make the situation more embarrassing it was proposed by Senator Kern’s colleagues on the committee that he should accept a place on the Finance committee. In the meanwhile some senators, understanding Kern’s position, called upon Shively with a frank statement of the situation, with the view to getting his indorsement of Kern’s acceptance, but the senior senator, not unnaturally miffed by the attitude of the steering committee, maintained silence. At this the senators who made the attempt returned to the meeting of the committee, and, in the absence of Kern, and knowing his position, placed him upon the Finance committee. These facts are set forth because of the disposition of Senator Kern’s enemies to create the impression that he had used his position on the steering committee to further his own interests at the expense of his colleague. Of interest in this connection is the fact that two years later when elected to the leadership of the senate and the chairmanship of the steering committee he voluntarily retired from the Finance committee in favor of his colleague, while permitting him to retain the equally important assignment as ranking member of the committee on Foreign Relations. Notwithstanding the persistent efforts of petty busy-bodies in Indiana to alienate the two senators, their relations warmed with their years of association in the senate and were never closer than when, on the solicitation of the dying Shively, Senator Kern called at the White House to urge the appointment as ambassador to Chili of Joseph H. Shea, who had managed Shively’s campaign for the senate against Kern in the legislature of 1909.