No one is so well qualified to tell the story of John Kern, the campaigner and man, as members of the newspaper fraternity who were assigned to “cover” him on many a tour, and called regularly at his office for many years. There was something in the temperament of the average newspaper man that appealed to him, and for practically all the reporters and correspondents who came into contact with him he formed personal friendship that was very real. This feeling was almost invariably reciprocated. The fact that many of these represented politically hostile papers made no difference with him. He was broad enough to understand. Among the gentlemen of the press peculiarly qualified to speak, not only because of extensive experience with him, but because of the personal friendship that existed between him and them, are Louis Ludlow, the Washington correspondent, for many [Illustration: _MR. KERN MEETS A PARTY WHEEL HORSE AT JASONVILLE._ Hub 1904. FROM KIN HUBBARD’S SKETCHES OF HIS TOUR WITH KERN IN 1904--INDIANAPOLIS NEWS ] years representative of _The Indianapolis Sentinel_ and _The Indianapolis Star_; W. H. Blodgett, the veteran political writer of _The Indianapolis News_, and Kin Hubbard, the cartoonist and creator of “Abe Martin,” who frequently accompanied Kern upon his tours sketching the crowds, and whose work was a delight to the senator. These men knew the Kern of the campaign more intimately than the politicians for he unburdened himself to them with greater freedom and his confidence was never betrayed. VIII Among the press correspondents with whom Senator Kern was associated for many years none were more intimately identified with him than Louis Ludlow, the Washington correspondent, for many years the representative at the national capitol of _The Indianapolis Sentinel_ and _The Indianapolis Star_. I am indebted to Mr. Ludlow for the following reminiscences: “The writer of this article campaigned with John W. Kern for five weeks in 1910 when he was contesting with Mr. Beveridge for the senatorial toga. We shared together the exhilarating novelties and disappointing hardships, the bitter and the sweet, of that five weeks’ strenuous tour. We rode together in the same rickety day-coaches and stuffy interurban cars, bunked at the same hotel and rooming houses, participated in the same miseries and inconvenience of travel inflicted upon us by a campaign schedule that knew neither rhyme or reason, and whatever social recognitions came his way he very considerately insisted that I should share. He treated me in every respect as a comrade, although the paper I was writing for at the time was politically hostile to him and was giving him an editorial wallop every day.