On March 4th, toward the close of the session, he threw a bomb into the opposition camp by offering a resolution instructing the temperance committee to have the bill before the senate, with or without recommendation, by 3 o’clock on the following afternoon. This did not harmonize with the plans of the committee or its chairman, but the resolution was adopted and the fun commenced. The Evansville agreement had been given a tremendous jolt. The temperance forces took their cue and flocked to the senate. The white light of publicity began to beat unmercifully upon the proceedings. Taken unaware and not yet prepared to submit a report the committee on the following day asked for another day’s delay, which was granted over the protest of ten members led by Kern, who jocularly moved after the vote was taken that a committee be appointed “to draft resolutions of respect for the late lamented Nicholson law.” These tactics, by casting suspicion of the sincerity of pretended friends of the measure, made further delay impossible, and on the following day the bill was reported with amendments. After this Kern applied himself to amendments. He was one of four who voted in favor of permitting the saloons to remain open until midnight in cities having a population of 25,000 and over. And he followed this by his own amendment, known as the “drug store amendment,” for which he has always been remembered. This provided that it should be unlawful for any spirituous, vinous or malt liquors to be sold or given away in drug stores except on the written prescription of a reputable physician. This amendment was adopted and a motion to reconsider was lost. When the bill as amended went to a vote Kern was one of nine who voted against it. But this was not to be the end of the fight. In the house the Kern amendment was rejected and in conference the amendment was changed to read that in drug stores liquor should not be sold or given away without prescription in any quantity less than a quart. When the conference report was submitted in the senate Kern made an onslaught on the drug store proviso as changed, resulting in a spirited debate which gave him an opportunity to attack the sincerity of the majority. Accused of introducing the drug store amendment in the interest of the saloons, he demanded to know whether the bill was intended “to advance the cause of temperance or mainly for the purpose of legislating against one business in favor of another,” and in a scathing denunciation of the spirit of hypocrisy he pictured the sanctimonious double-dealer, well known at that time, who loftily attacked the saloon while stopping at the corner drug store on his way home from church for his dram or bottle behind the prescription case.