The close of the campaign left Senator Kern in such a state of physical debility that he was fixed in the determination to withdraw from the duties and responsibilities of the leadership of his party in the senate with the view to conserving his health. From this he was dissuaded by party leaders and the opening of the short session of the sixty-fourth congress in December found him at his post as usual. The session promised to be a crowded one. In his message at the opening of the session President Wilson had insisted that the congress proceed to the immediate enactment of the supplementary legislation to the Eight-Hour Railroad bill pushed through in the early autumn to prevent the strike, and there was no certainty that this could be done without a prolonged contest on several points. The congress in response to popular clamor had provided for enormously increased expenditures for the army and navy, and now the problem of raising the revenue correspondingly was demanding attention. This promised to partake of the nature of a party contest as all revenue measures do. The historic importance of the session, however, was not foreshadowed, for on the December day in 1916 when the gavels fell there was little reason to assume that the nation was rushing toward war. It is not my purpose to follow Senator Kern in the discharge of his duties as majority leader. These differed in no wise from those of the preceding years. But as the days went by and instead of improving in health he either made no progress toward recovery or seemed to be losing ground, he compromised with his sense of duty to the extent of spending less time in the stuffy senate chamber. In the afternoons when the senate had struck its routine pace he retired more and more frequently to his room at Congress Hall, or to the seclusion of his committee room on the gallery floor. His loss of voice immediately after the campaign, which might have been ascribed to over use, persisted with an ominous suggestion of a recurrence of the trouble which had driven him to Asheville ten years before. This, with his loss of weight and unhealthy color, caused him deep concern, which was not relieved by the necessity imposed by his lack of fortune of returning to his profession at the age of sixty-eight. Greatly weakened, he met all the obligations imposed upon him by his party associates and the administration uncomplainingly and gladly. While the irony of defeat had sunk deep, the life-long chivalry asserted itself in the generous praise of his successor, and if there was any bitterness in his soul it failed to find expression on his lips. Realizing that his political race was run, he failed to respond to unfriendly comments of his most virulent political enemies. Nothing could have been more perfect than his deportment in defeat.