The life of John Worth KernBowers, Claude G. (Claude Gernade)
History
The life of John Worth Kern
Bowers, Claude G. (Claude Gernade)
Kern, John Worth, 1849-1917; Politicians -- United States -- Biography
Five days went by before the resolution was again considered by the
senate. In the meanwhile the country was awakening to the significance
of the fight and Kern was able to present scores of letters, telegrams,
petitions from miners of West Virginia and elsewhere, and a striking
telegram from the victims of militarism then held in the jail at
Clarksburg, West Virginia, “stripped of constitutional rights, denied a
jury trial, forced to face a drumhead court martial, deprived of their
citizenship, reduced to subjects and thrown into jail.” This resulted in
the renewal of the discussion and Senator Kern said:
“I had a telegram the other day from a leader of Socialism
denunciatory of these conditions. When I showed it to a senator
here he deprecated the idea that there was such relationship
between me and that man that he would feel free to telegraph me.
Men are being imprisoned in West Virginia to-day because they are
Socialists; newspapers are being suppressed because they teach the
doctrines of Socialism; men are discharged from mines, according to
the testimony taken before the military commission, because they
vote the Socialist ticket and because they belong to a labor union;
and while the doctrine of judicial recall gains favor with the
people whose rights are stricken down by unjust decisions, so do
the forces of Socialism multiply in such breeding grounds as those
in parts of West Virginia, with special privilege on one hand
eating out the substance of the people, and with judges setting
aside constitutional safeguards to the end that the people may be
oppressed and denied rights for which their fathers fought and
died.
“Socialism has grown in this country until more than a million men
cast their votes for the Socialist ticket at the last election. The
fire of Socialism is fed by such fuel as this West Virginia
decision, and the lawless action there of men charged with the
execution of the laws. Socialism grows and will grow in exact
proportion as wrongdoing is countenanced and upheld, not only by
the strong legislative forces of the country, but especially when
they are backed up by the judicial arm of the government.
“Senators, these million men who voted the Socialist ticket last
November are the men who ought to be full of that kind of
patriotism in time of war that would impel them to go out and walk
on the uttermost ridge of battle, to peril their lives in defense
of their country and their country’s flag because they love their
country, because they venerate the laws of the land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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