included tariff reform, the nation's first income tax (as permitted by the Sixteenth Amendment), the Federal Reserve Act, antitrust laws, and the Federal Trade Commission. In 1913, Kern was contacted by the labor activist Mary Harris Jones ("Mother Jones"), who had been imprisoned by a military court in West Virginia during the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike of 1912. In response, Kern introduced the Kern Resolution, adopted by the Senate on May 27. The resolution led to the Senate Committee on Education and Labor investigation into conditions in West Virginia coal mines. Congress almost immediately authorized two similar investigations: into conditions in copper mining in Michigan and coal mining in Colorado. Kern advocated direct popular election of senators and helped enact the Seventeenth Amendment to establish it in 1913. However, when Kern sought re-election in 1916 under the new system, he was defeated by the Republican Harry S. New and narrowly lost the popular vote (47.8% to 46.1%). Retirement and death At Bryan's urging, Wilson considered Kern for appointment to various offices, but Kern was in poor health and unable to serve. He died on August 17, 1917, in Asheville, five months after leaving the Senate. He was originally interred at his summer home near Hollins, Virginia, and re-interred in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis twelve years later. He was survived by his wife Araminta C. Kern, who died at age 85 in 1951, and his son John W. Kern Jr., a future judge and mayor of Indianapolis. References External links Further reading |- |- |- |- |- 1849 births 1917 deaths 19th-century American politicians 20th-century American politicians American prosecutors Burials at Crown Hill Cemetery Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees Democratic Party United States senators from Indiana Democratic Party Indiana state senators People from Kokomo, Indiana 1908 United States vice-presidential candidates University of Michigan Law School alumni