This speech was published as a campaign document and scattered broadcast over the state. On the stump that fall Mr. Kern participated in his sixteenth campaign, in demand all over the state. No Democrat stood higher in Indiana; no Indiana Democrat stood so high in party circles in the country. Such was his political status when the forces began to line up for the campaign of 1904. III In the late winter of 1903 there was a general feeling of optimism among Democrats everywhere. The greater portion of the men who had left the party in 1896 had returned to the fold. The bitterness incidental to their leaving had been mellowed by time. Mr. Roosevelt, who had succeeded to the Presidency on the assassination of McKinley, had never been popular with the working forces of his party, and in the role of the proverbial bull in the china shop he was keeping business in such a state of constant agitation that there was a general feeling that this element, which had been the most potential enemy of the Democratic party in the two previous presidential campaigns, would take revenge upon him by throwing its influence to the Democracy. Mr. Bryan had made it clear that he would not be a candidate, thus leaving the field clear for other men. Acting upon the theory that a man unknown in national politics would probably possess more strength than one with a record to defend, and that this man should be found in the state of New York, an organization was perfected to urge the nomination of Alton B. Parker, an able lawyer, with an unblemished political career, and a distinguished record as a jurist. The majority of the Indiana leaders took kindly to the suggestion, even the venerable David Turpie breaking his rule of silence to bestow upon it his hearty commendation. The candidacy of Judge Parker made a personal appeal to Mr. Kern. While in Europe in 1895 he had stopped for some time at the same hotel in London where the New York lawyer was staying, and a personal friendship had resulted which had been strengthened by occasional meetings in the nine years intervening. Thus it was that he had become a strong partisan of the Parker candidacy.