“It is only fair now that, when the hour of triumph has come, the song of victory should be sung by one whose heart has been in the fight. John W. Kern has been faithful every day during these sixteen years. It has cost him time, it has cost him money, and it has cost him the wear of body and of mind. He has been giving freely of all that he had. Four years ago, when the foundation was laid for the present victory, it was John W. Kern who stood with me and helped to bring into the campaign the idea of publicity before the election which has now swept the country until even the Republican party was compelled by public opinion to give it unanimous indorsement only a few weeks ago. “It was John W. Kern who stood with me on that Denver platform that demanded the election of senators by a direct vote of the people, when a Republican national convention had turned it down by a vote of seven to one, and now he is in the United States senate, where he is measuring up to the high expectations of a great party. “He helped in the fight for the amendment authorizing an income tax, and he has lived to see a president who was opposed to us take that plank out of our platform and put it through the house and senate and to see thirty-four states of the union ratify it. And now he is leading the fight in the United States senate to purge that body of Senator Lorimer, who typifies the supremacy of corruption in politics. “What better man could we have to open a convention? “What better man could we have to represent the spirit of progressive Democracy?”