“‘Well, boys,’ as we gathered around him, ‘this is what it is all about’--and sitting on a baggage truck the stranger (I can see him now as plainly as I did then more than thirty years ago) he told us the story. “‘Who are you, and what part in this affair do you take?’ one of our party asked. “‘I’m just an innocent bystander. My name is John W. Kern. I am a lawyer up at Kokomo, and I bumped into this thing accidentally.’ Some of the small town reporters clustered about that baggage truck listening to Mr. Kern’s recital of the story of the young man’s arrest in later years became well known in journalistic work, and the friendship for Mr. Kern that began on the railway platform was never broken. Mr. Kern never changed that policy of dealing with newspaper men. The correspondents who campaigned with Mr. Kern were always sure of fair and equal treatment. He played no favorites. When he gave out a story every one got it. Knowing that a careless or indifferent reporter, or a representative of an unfriendly paper could cause him great annoyance, and perhaps deep injury by not truthfully quoting him, or twisting his language to a meaning other than what he intended to say, Mr. Kern never asked the correspondents with him to submit their dispatches before putting them on the wire. He was willing to trust to their fairness and honor. “‘Gentlemen,’ he would say at the beginning of the tour, ‘I won’t say anything that I do not wish published, and I know you won’t send anything I don’t say.’ And among the hundreds of correspondents who ‘covered’ Mr. Kern in his long political career not one ever disappointed him. When John W. Kern was the principal figure in the noise and music of the feast the newspaper men with him were never forgotten. Reception committees might try to drag him away, but he would not be dragged. “‘There will be no show,’ he used to tell the eager committeemen, each striving for the honor of leading him to his carriage or to the speaker’s stand, ‘until the orchestra is ready. I want the newspaper men put where they can see and hear.’ And he would not move until the correspondents with him were provided for. Once he was dragged to a boarding house by the reception committee, who thought it would be a good political stroke to have Mr. Kern take dinner with the boarding house keeper who was off the county ticket. The newspaper men returning from the telegraph office were met at the gate by Mr. Kern. “‘Boys,’ he whispered, ‘don’t come in here. The grub is ghastly and the board of health has gone fishing. If you must eat in this town go to the hotel.’