The speech of Kern aroused his hearers to a high pitch of enthusiasm, and called forth comment and speculation in political circles over the country. The Washington correspondent of _The Indianapolis Journal_ interpreted the speech to mean that the speaker “has been selected by Colonel Bryan as his choice for the presidential nomination in 1904,” and said “Kern must now be reckoned among the possible candidates for the presidential nomination four years hence.” One thing the speech did do--it put Kern to the fore, in the minds of the masses, as the chief lieutenant of Mr. Bryan in Indiana, and he was destined to hold this position until his death. It thoroughly established him in the leadership of the masses of the party, and when the state convention met in 1902 he was chosen to deliver the “keynote” speech. This address, harmonizing in spirit with that at Lincoln, dealt with the problems of imperialism, the destruction of the Boer republics through the connivance of the national administration, the ship subsidy measure for which Senator Fairbanks, a candidate for re-election, had voted, the Dingley law and the trusts. It was in this speech that he touched upon one of the scandals of the Spanish-American war--the wholesale distribution of officers’ commissions among the sons of the rich and the politically influential without regard to qualification. Fifteen years later and in private conversation I heard him discussing this scandal and in language indicative of the sincerity of his disgust. After referring in his speech to an attempt by the son of an Indiana millionaire, who had been thus honored and had afterward left the Democratic party, he said: “I reflected as I listened to his tirade, delivered with all the zeal of a new convert and the malice of an apostate, that the Democratic party is the soldiers’ truest friend; that when the war with Spain was inaugurated the Democratic party believed that the soldiers who for years had served their country and endured the hardships of drill and camp life on the frontier, looking forward to a promotion--the soldiers’ only reward of merit--should receive the commissions of captain and lieutenant, which were about to be distributed with a lavish hand. Those brave boys had waited long and served their country faithfully, and now hopefully looked for recognition, but while they were in the trenches and on the march a force in the rear was at work against them. The sons of millionaires, senators and congressmen--men with a political pull, who had never seen an hour of military service, were preferred, and received the commissions, and the soldier boys waited on, and in the ranks, fought on and won new glory and honor for their country.”