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'Dayton's Loss of a Real Man'

The following editorial appeared in the Dayton Journal on June 4, 1917, the morning after Mr. Carl B. Kern was killed at age 37 in an automobile accident.

There are few homes in Dayton today - homes with little boys in them - that do not grieve for the passing away of Carl B. Kern, director of the boys' department of the Young Men's Christian association. The loss of this man, who stood head and shoulders above thousands of his fellows as a real man can not now be estimated. It is too soon for that, albeit the community already had been able to appreciate just what was his influence for good with the growing boys, the future citizens of Dayton.

Taken in the prime of his manhood, in the prime of his ambitious undertakings, in the prime of his service to Dayton, at a time when hundreds of his little friends found in him a teacher, a friend and big brother, he has left a vacancy that will be hard to fill. It can not be filled in the hearts of his friends and his loved ones, nor will it be filled just as he filled it in the great organization of which he was such a virle, inspiring spirit. The Young Men's Christian association will feel that for a long time.

Carl B. Kern was engaging to a point that made it possible for him to attract to him hundreds of boys who found in his department a guide such as every mother might choose for her son. And the boys followed him with gladness, their faith in him never anything but strong, their love for the big director ever increasing. He was with them heart and soul and they with him. In the big outdoors which he loved so well he camped with them, became a boy again and entered into the spirit of their frolics. Too, he made their tasks a sport and they loved him for that though his discipline was rigid. Gentle but firmly he led them on the right way, laid the foundation for manliness in his charges, accomplished many a thing that fathers and mothers had failed to accomplish, thus endearing himself to these same fathers and mothers who were proud to have their sons follow him.

In all things Carl B. Kern was big. There was nothing of littleness about him. He was a man for boys to love and follow. He was a man's man. He was a real man.