Last session--Retains leadership--Failing health--Shadows of war--Kern’s distress--The President’s senate speech--Kern delighted--On arming merchant ships--Kern’s valedictorian--Henry Cabot Lodge’s response--Hoke Smith’s--Watson’s--Stone’s--Thomas’--Testimonial of Democratic senators--Vice-president’s note. XX--THE REAL KERN: A COMPOSITE PORTRAIT 403 The Kern of the closet--Solving problems in solitude--Powers of concentration--Patience--Patience under attack--Tireless letter writer--Art of his letters--Manner of preparing speeches--Religious nature--Rebukes a minister--Letter on death of a child--Personal appearance--The companion--Reminiscences and stories of Henry Barnhart, Ludlow and Blodgett--Leon Bailey’s picture. XXI--AT KERNCLIFFE 453 Kerncliffe--Mrs. Strauss on “The House that Araminta Built”--Kern’s hope for rest--Failing health--At Asheville--Lecture tour--Breakdown--Ordered back to Asheville--Letters to sons--Last days--Death--The burial at Kerncliffe--Memorial meeting at Indianapolis--Senate action--Secretary of Labor Wilson’s tribute. LIFE OF JOHN W. KERN CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH I In the forties the constant stream of sturdy pioneers pouring into Indiana from the eastern and southern states began the work of redeeming the state from the wilderness. These early settlers were a hardy folk, adventurous, inured to toil, and strong of character. In 1840 the first white man settled in Harrison township in Howard county, albeit the locality had been a paradise for trappers for several years before a permanent settlement was made. It was a country of rich soil, but heavily wooded with primeval forests, and many years of assiduous labor were to intervene before the stumps could be cleared from the fields or the highways be made at all passable in bad weather. Almost immediately after the first white man established a permanent home in the township a water mill was built, and about it a settlement sprang up which took the name of Alto. Soon the village boasted--and the word is used advisedly--three stores, three cabinet shops, a blacksmith shop, a boot and shoe shop, and during the first two years of its existence it did as much business as Kokomo, a few miles distant. Here was constructed the first church in the township, a large one built of logs, which was to serve as a place of worship for many years. And in the middle of the first decade of the existence of this settlement in the wilderness Dr. Jacob Harrison Kern moved to the village, built a home and opened an office.