During the same summer Senator Kern made his heaviest contribution to humanity in the part he played in forcing the consideration and passage of the child labor law. This was a subject that had been near his heart for many years, and we have seen that almost a quarter of a century before while a member of the state senate he had fought to place a child labor law upon the statutes of the state. For many years efforts were made from time to time to pass a child labor law, but without results. The public opinion of the republic had long been crystallized against the exploitation of childhood, and social workers had accumulated the most damning evidence against the system, but the statesmen seemed impervious to the pity of it, and cynically found excuses for non-activity. But a few years before Senator Kern had listened to the witnesses called by the House committee investigating the strike in the mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and had been sickened by the sight of pale, aenemic, underfed, overworked children who were actually forced to pay for the cold water that they drank while at work in the mills. He hated the exploitation of childhood with a holy hate, and one of his ambitions was to be able to strike a blow at the system while in the senate. One day in the summer of 1916, at a time when senators and congressmen were anxious to get back to their constituents in preparation for the campaign, and with the program already crowded, the congress and the country were electrified by the action of President Wilson in demanding action upon the child labor bill then pending in the senate. Without warning he appeared at the capitol one afternoon and repaired to the president’s room, where he had grown accustomed to hold important conferences on legislation, contrary to the custom of his predecessor, and summoned Senator Kern. The senator was first informed of the president’s presence at the capitol by a page who had been hailed by the executive and asked if he would inform Senator Kern that he was wanted in the little room, with its Brumidi decorations, beyond the Marble Room. There was a brief conference, after which other senators were summoned, and the word flashed over the country that the president had created another stumbling block to adjournment by insisting upon the passage of the child labor law. From that time on Kern exerted himself to the utmost in pressing for action.