The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 164

Indianapolis' former Mayor John W. Kern now serves as Chief Justice of the U.S. Tax Court. Here he works in his Washington chambers. A FAMILY TRADITION President Roosevelt named him to the old Board of Tax Appeals in 1937.

(When the board was re-created as the Tax Court of the United States in 1942, Kern was reappointed. Former President Truman named him to another 14-year term in 1950.) In moving to Washington, the Kern family suffered loss of part of their furniture. The truck was too small, and several valued pieces of furniture and a number of books were ruined. Shortly after their arrival, Judge and Mrs. Kern were invited to a White House reception.

The line wound through the ballroom, and the President's military aide was carefully presenting each couple. The Kerns were a long way down the line when the President spotted them. "Hello, John. How are you? Get moved all right?" "No, Mr. President.

We had an awful time getting moved. The truck was too small and a lot of our stuff got wet." "That's too bad. Hope nothing was damaged." "Some of our furniture and a lot of our books The whole receiving line stood transfixed while the President and the city's newest tax judge exchanged these homely comments. KERN'S POSITION as chief judge of the Tax Court seems in keeping with family tradition. His father was deeply interested in the then-novel system of taxing individual incomes when he was in the Senate.

The elder Kern also was a keen student of the anti-trust laws, which are administered by the Federal Trade Commission. A second son, William C. Kern, is the chief ol the litigation division of th FTC. Judge Kern, during his 1' years in Washington, has beer devoted to the Georgetowr Presbyterian Church, when he has served until recently as a trustee. He is also actlvi in the Metropolitan Club Washington and tries to joii fellow memb mere a luncjuicn once a week.

Dl BEN COLE The Star Washington Bureau secret amusement that indicates the small fry of that era was ingeniously mischievous. In 1910, his father, John W. Kern, was elected a United States senator from Indiana. The family continued to live most of the year in Indianapolis; but summers meant Botetourt County, Virginia, where the family had a home. THE STORY of the Virginia residence involves John Kern's grandfather, a Virginian by birth who moved to Indiana and practiced medicine in Howard County.

When he retired, he went back to his native heath and bought 1,250 acres In a valley high in the Blue Ridge. There Judge Kern's mother built the family home. "She was an amateur architect and loved to build things," the Judge now recalls. Senator Kern, however, didn't get the time with his family that he expected. In 1913, he became majority leader of the Senate in the administration of President Wood row Wilson.

Congress abandoned Its shorter sessions and kept busy most of the time. "Aside from the absence of my father, my brother and I had the happiest of boyhoods," Judge Kern declares. After his father's death, John Kern went to Washing-, ton and Lee University, Lexington, where he was graduated in 1920; and to Harvard law school, where he received his law degree in 1923. THE YEAR he came out of law school, he was made United States Commissioner In. Indianapolis the youOat commissioner In the service, he believes.

"I was too young for every Job I ever held except this one," the Judge says, in reviewing his career. la 1821, a judge of the Marion County Superior Court and in 1935 Kern became mayor of Indianapolis. As mayor, Kern played host in 1936 to the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt when the chief executive visited the Hoosier capital during the campaign. Kern rode in an open with the President and for-iner Governor Paul V.

SicNutt on a tour of the city. "My most vivid impression was of the size of those two men Roosevelt an Mc-Nutt They were both big, and broad showered. I was squeezed in between them, and. I couldn't even get room to get my cigarettes out of my pocket" KERN NEVER finished his four-year term as mayor. WAY Judge John W.

Kern describes the work of his Tax Court of the United States is that of "three-dimensional law." For the past 17 years, the former Indianapolis mayor has been pondering questions raised by the public and its relations with the Internal Revenue Service. -In these cases, Judge Kern explains, the court must consider the facts and the tax laws; but the third dimension comes in when these must be set against the background of the general law. The work is fascinating. Judge Kern admits, and he chafes at the administrative duties that fall upon him as chi! judge of the 16-member court. They keep him from the actual work of the court.

The United States has had a panel to review tax matters since 1924. The -present-day tax court is no bigger than it was when it started as the Board of Tax Appeals. In those days only about tax returns were filed each year. -Today, some 68,000,000 Americans file tax returns; yet the court has pending only 10,500 cases. JUDGE KERN grins over some of the facts that come up for study.

For instance, there was the man who bought an apartment house under an assumed name in order to keep his wife from knowing how much money hs had. The Income from this property he dutifully reported to the revenue service, filing a return in his fictitious name. Then he filed a regular return for himself and his wife. As it turned out, he unln-' tentlonally or, so he said-defrauded Uncle Sam because he would have wound up In a higher tax bracket if he hid reported all his income on a single return. "I was trying to cheat my wife," the taxpayer declared.

"But I didn't tr.ean to cheat Uncle Sam." Judge Kern and his fellow judges must decide whether it was a case of tax fraud. BEFORE THERE was a tax court, taxpayers who got crosswise with their government over tax matters had to go ahead and pay, then sue in the regular district courts. This usually kept their protested tax payments tied up for a long time. The tax court will decide the question before the tax is paid. The citizens like it better that way.

Judge Kern likes the court because there is always a' new question to consider. Recently he sat on the bench to hear motions involving cases before the court A Philadelphia case was called and the attorney arose, explained that his client had died since the case was brought Could the court appoint an administrator for the man's estate in order to conclude the tax case? "First time this court has ever been asked to name an administrator," Judge Kern marveled. THE HOOSIER Jurist was born in Indianapolis July 7, 1900. Nothing unusual occurred in his young life until he was 8 years old. Then young John Kern was stricken with polio and left paralyzed in both legs.

He recalls getting most of his early education himself by browsing in his father's library in the old family home at 1836 North Pennsylvania Street. Later, when he mastered the art of swinging himself along on crutches, Kern attended the Brooks School for Boys, attended by some Indianapolis' notable young of the day. The recollections of those particular school days bring to his eyes a certain H. LIS OTHER hobby is hi son, John Worth Kern, who 1 named the Judge wants i understood not for his fathe but for his grandfather. Th youngest Joha W.

Kern is, lik his father and grandfathei following the law as a careei having been graduated fror Harvard law school in 195 and serving as the law cler to Judge Harold M. Stephen of the United States Court Appeals for the District Columbia. 24 THt INDIANAPOLIS STAR MAGAZIN.