Long before the various candidates had been formally presented to the convention it required no extraordinary perspicacity on the part of veterans of national conventions to see that none of the avowed candidates could or would be nominated without prolonged balloting, and that there was a strong possibility of a hopeless deadlock. It did not require many ballots to justify the fear. In the resulting discussion of a compromise candidate or “dark horse” no name appeared with such frequency as that of Kern. Although he was constantly holding his friends in check this did not spare him from the suspicion of some and the open criticism of others. _The New York World_ sounded a “note of warning” in a direct charge that “the reactionaries of the convention” were planning to throw the nomination to Senator Kern to prevent it from going to Wilson. The absurdity of the assumption that “reactionaries” would be interested in the nomination of the progressive leader of Indiana, who had been intimately identified with the reform measures of Mr. Bryan was not explained. The truth is that the men who were drawn to the Kern solution of a deadlock were found among members of both wings of the party. But the men who gave the movement impetus in the beginning and remained throughout the most faithful to it were progressives of the most militant stripe. Among them were men whose first choice were Wilson, Clark, Harmon and Marshall. The Underwood forces alone contributed no support to the movement. The most active and aggressive sponsor of the Kern compromise idea in the event the deadlock continued long enough to engender bitterness was Senator Luke Lea of Tennessee, whose first choice was Wilson. The name of Kern appeared for the first time in the balloting on the third ballot when a delegate from Ohio went to him. After that there was scarcely a ballot in which he did not appear usually with one vote, frequently with two and sometimes with more. This was only significant in that it kept his name constantly before the convention as a way out. On June 29th, three days before the nomination of Wilson, the Associated Press carried the story of the “dark horse” talk and said that “the names of Kern and Gaynor are most frequently mentioned;” and on the same day the United Press announced that Kern would not be a candidate until it had been clearly demonstrated that Wilson, Clark or Marshall could not be nominated, and that Indiana would then lead the way, to be followed by Illinois.