As usual with men of this type their vaulting ambition overleaped itself. Meanwhile Governor Haywood of West Virginia, elected to succeed Glasscock on the pledge to eliminate the armed thugs called guards, gave an interview to the press which was sent throughout the country attacking Kern in the most bitter language. Thus at a time when the public, kept in the dark as to the horrible conditions in West Virginia through the deliberate suppression of the most sensational news, Kern was being pilloried throughout the country as a demagogic sensationalist, in league with lawlessness, and not above stooping to ordinary falsehoods. The conservative element, prone to suspect all strikers, and exonerate all against whom strikes are aimed, was being prejudiced against him. The masses of the people were not aroused because they did not have the facts. The most powerful influences were in league against him. And the whisper went about the corridors of the capital that the resolution was a deadly blow at the rights of the states, and was only the beginning of more dangerous encroachments upon state sovereignty. Mr. Kern had only entered upon his work as senate leader and his personal, and especially his political enemies, knowing little and caring less about the merits of the resolution, and convinced that it could never pass the senate, were already gloating over his humiliation, and preparing to herald it as an early repudiation of his leadership by his party. Never before in the history of the United States senate in a straight contest between the lowly or the workers and the great financial interests had the workers won--and the politicians were judging the future by the past. But on the very day that Haywood issued his scurrilous statement an historic telegram was placed in the hands of Kern which did much to turn the tide. This telegram has its own story. VIII