SPEAKER HOUSE REPRESENTATIVES CONGRESSMAN MO 1912 PRESIDENT CAND LETTER SIGNED
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CHAMP CLARK(1850 – 1921)36th SPEAKEROF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1911-1919US DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONGRESSMANFROM MISSOURI 1893-1895 and 1897-1921.&CANDIDATE FOR THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENTOF THE UNITED STATES IN 1912Entering the 1912 Democratic National Convention, Clark had won the backingof a majority of the delegates, but lacked the necessary two-thirds majority towin the presidential nomination. After dozens of ballots, Woodrow Wilson emerged as the ...Democraticpresidential nominee, and went on to win the 1912 presidential election. Clark helped Wilson pass much ofhis progressive agenda but opposed U.S. entry into World War I. He died in March 1921, twodays before he would have left office!Clark inadvertently helped defeat the Canadian–American Reciprocity Treatyof 1911 by arguing that ratification of the treaty would lead to theincorporation of Canada into the United States.<<>> HERE’S A LETTER SIGNED BY CLARK ONRARE, “THE SPEAKER’S ROOMS – HOUSE OFREPRESENTATIVES” LETTERHEAD, 1p., DATED AT WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 10, 1917, TO MISS ANNABELLE LEE AT 28 WEST 49th STREET, NEW YORK CITY, ACKNOWLEDGING RECEIPT OF A SPECIAL DELIVERY LETTER FROM HER FOR HIS WIFE WHO ISIN NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA. HE INFORMSMISS LEE THAT HE WILL FORWARD THE LETTER TO HER WITH OTHER MAIL TOMORROW…The document measures 8” x 10½” andis in VERY FINE CONDITION – BOLDLY EXECUTED BY CLARK! Afine Piece of Political/Presidential memorabilia to add to your Autograph, Manuscript & Ephemera Collection!<<>[:]<>>BIOGRAPHY OF THE HONORABLECHAMP CLARKJames Beauchamp “Champ”Clark (07 March 1850–02 March 1921), Speaker of the House of Representatives, was bornJames Beauchamp Clark in Lawrenceburg, Anderson County, Kentucky, the son ofJohn Hampton Clark, a traveling dentist and buggy maker, and Althea JaneBeauchamp. Although he received only a rudimentary education, Clark beganteaching school himself at the age of fifteen. From 1867 to 1870 he attendedKentucky University (now Transylvania University), from which he was expelledfor shooting at a fellow student. In 1872 entered Bethany College in WestVirginia and graduated in 1873 after a single year of study. The prizes hereceived at commencement earned him the presidency of Marshall College in WestVirginia for a year. He then completed the course of study at the CincinnatiLaw School in 1875. While in law school, he shortened his name to “Champ, ”which would fit better in a newspaper headline. In 1881 he married GenevieveBennett; they had four children, one of whom was Bennett Champ Clark, a U.S. senator.In 1875 Clark moved to Missouri—first to Moberly, then Renick, and thenthe town of Louisiana—where he taught school from 1875 to 1876 and practicedlaw from 1876 to 1890. He became active in Democratic politics, serving as apresidential elector in 1880 and as prosecuting attorney for Pike County forfour years at the end of the decade. In 1888 he won election to the Missourilegislature, where he wrote the state’s Australian ballot law and antitrustlegislation. From that springboard, he sought election in 1890 to the U.S.House of Representatives from Missouri’s Ninth District. His effort to unseatthe incumbent, Richard Norton, failed, but he won the Democratic nomination twoyears later. Clark gained national attention when he addressed an audience atNew York’s Tammany Hall on 4 July 1893. The Democratic party in Missouri, hesaid, “is true as the needle to the pole, can’t be seduced, can’t be bought, can’t be bullied” (Morrison, “America’s Ring-Tailed Roarer, ” p. 61). In an erathat esteemed effective oratory, this triumph made Clark a sought-afterlecturer on the Chautauqua speaking circuit for the next twenty years.Clark served one term in Congress, where he supported the free coinage ofsilver, an income tax, lower tariffs, and the direct election of senators.Defeated in the Republican national landslide of 1894, he was reelected in 1896and served continuously until 1920. The district that had been known as the“Bloody Ninth” became the “peaceful Ninth” during those years (Morrison, “Political Biography, ” p. 97). He served on the House Ways and Means Committeeand the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Democratic minority that lasted until1911. He supported the war with Spain in 1898 but criticized the William McKinley administration’s annexation of Hawaiiand the Philippine Islands.As his oratorical reputation for defending the Democrats grew, Clarkbecame a rising figure in the House minority. He was a candidate for the partyleadership in 1903 but lost to John Sharp Williams of Mississippi. He then became aloyal ally of Williams. In 1904 Clark served as permanent chairman of theDemocratic National Convention, an assignment that also helped his chances ofbecoming minority leader.When Williams was elected to the Senate in 1907, he gave Clark advancenotice of his candidacy. The Missourian rounded up support from his colleaguesand received the unanimous endorsement of the caucus in early 1908. By the timeClark assumed a leadership role for the Democrats, the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt and intraparty differences over theprotective tariff had made the Republicans more divided and faction-ridden thanat any previous time during Clark’s tenure in Congress. The dictatorial rule ofSpeaker Joseph G. Cannon added to Republican factionalismduring the first year of the presidency of William Howard Taft.Clark and his party endeavored to capitalize on the mounting disarray ofthe GOP in the House during the special session that began in the spring of1909. His initial attempt at working with the Republican opponents of Cannon, known as “Insurgents, ” collapsed when Democratic defections prevented areduction in the Speaker’s power. In the battle over the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, Clark kept his party together and intensified internal Republican divisionsabout protective tariff legislation. When the House convened in its regular sessionin the fall of 1909, Clark led the fight to curb the power of Cannon that endedin victory in the spring of 1910. Throughout the rest of the year, Clark keptthe House minority as a unit to amend the measures that Taft and theRepublicans offered in a more progressive direction.In the election of 1910, Clark and his party benefited from the tensionbetween Taft and Roosevelt, the legacy of “Cannonism, ” and the internalbickering of the progressive and conservative Republicans. The Democrats usedthe issue of inflation as a way to counter GOP support for the protectivetariff. When the votes were counted, the Democrats had gained control of theHouse of Representatives for the first time since 1894. Clark became Speaker inMarch 1911, when another special session convened to take up a trade agreementwith Canada. His skillful parliamentary leadership had brought the Democratsback to power. One progressive reporter at the time called him “a man ofcommanding presence, a ready, forceful and often witty speaker” who had “beensteadily gathering strength and leadership in his party” (Sarasohn, p. 61).As Speaker in the 1911 sessions of Congress, Clark continued to hold theDemocrats together and to make issues regarding tariff reduction and antitrustpolicy that shaped the party’s agenda for the 1912 presidential election. Hefound that the fight against Cannon had reduced the Speaker’s power, and heserved not as the sole leader of his party but as a kind of coequal with themajority leader and the powerful chairmen of committees. By then Clark wasbeing mentioned as a possible candidate himself. He had the support of westernDemocrats who had long followed William Jennings Bryan, he won the endorsement of William Randolph Hearst and his newspapers, and hisrecord as Speaker had been better than observers had expected. His backersdepicted him “as a rock of safety” (Gould, p. 153).Clark’s main challenger for the nomination in 1912 was the new Democraticgovernor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson, who had surged to the front of thenomination race in 1911 because of his fresh face and progressive record. Withthe Republicans split between Taft and Roosevelt, the Democratic nominationbecame more of a prize in early 1912. As that happened, the mainstream of theDemocratic party looked to Clark as a safe alternative to the unknown Wilson.The largest obstacle to Clark’s candidacy was the perception that he was apolitical lightweight. One element in that judgment was the campaign song “YouGotta Quit Kickin’ My Dawg Around.” Another was the Speaker’s propensity forindiscreet statements. During the debate over trade reciprocity with Canada, Clark observed that he hoped to annex “every foot of the British North Americanpossessions, no matter how far north they may extend” (Gould, p. 163). Clarkalso faced Bryan’s reluctance to see the Speaker obtain the Democraticnomination. Clark and Bryan had long been at odds over the leadership of theDemocratic party, and Bryan feared that the Speaker would sell out to theconservative wing of the party.During the first half of 1912 Clark became the Democratic frontrunner. InApril and May he outpaced Wilson and arrived at the national convention inBaltimore with nearly 500 delegates committed or leaning toward him, but he wasstill short of the two-thirds needed for the nomination. In the politicaljockeying before the convention opened, Clark made a crucial mistake. Whenparty conservatives selected Alton B. Parker, the nominee in 1904, as thetemporary chairman, Bryan wired all the candidates, urging them to blockParker. Wilson agreed, but Clark did not, which made Wilson seem a progressivechampion. Later, because Clark had the backing of the conservative New Yorkdelegation, Bryan dramatically changed his delegate vote from Clark to Wilsonon the fourteenth ballot. Wilson won on the forty-sixth ballot. Clark neverforgave Bryan for denying him the Democratic nomination and probably thepresidency in 1912. In his defeat, the Speaker attached less weight to the dealsthe Wilson forces had made with party bosses in Illinois and Indiana.Clark cooperated during the enactment of Wilson’s New Freedom program inhis first term, although he broke with the president over the issue of thePanama Canal tolls in 1914. When the United States entered World War I, however, Clark opposed the war and the draft. He joined with other agrarianDemocrats in standing against the administration’s war policies. The Speaker’sposition contributed to the disunity of his party on Capitol Hill that led tothe Republican resurgence in 1918. Clark lost his Speakership when theRepublicans regained control of the House in 1919. He was defeated in theRepublican landslide of 1920 and died a few months later in Washington, D.C.His two-volume memoirs, published the year before his death, did little toenhance his historical standing.Clark’s reputation has never escaped the foolishness of his 1912 campaignsong and the criticisms of reporters who favored Wilson for president. Modernscholars regard him as an effective party leader who revitalized the HouseDemocrats through the use of the Democratic caucus and increased power for thecommittees. Clark is one of the underrated Speakers in the history of Congressand an important figure in the evolution of the modern Democratic party duringthe era of Wilson.BibliographyClark’s papers were long believed to have been destroyed, but asubstantial collection of family and political papers is now at the Western HistoricalManuscripts Collection at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Other Clarkletters are in the papers of William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson at theLibrary of Congress. Clark’s own writings include his autobiography, MyQuarter Century in American Politics (2 vols., 1920), and numerousarticles for contemporary periodicals, such as “The Political Situation in theUnited States, ” Forum 43 (June 1910): 634–37; “The Duty of theDemocrats, ” Independent 72 (25 Jan. 1912): 176–79; and “Democracy IsSafe, ” Forum 58 (Nov. 1917): 517–25. For assessments of Clark in hisown time, see Ray Stannard Baker, “What about the Democratic Party?” AmericanMagazine 70 (June 1910): 147–60; and Alfred H. Lewis, “The HonorableChamp, ” Cosmopolitan 51 (Nov. 1911): 760–65. Geoffrey F. Morrison, “APolitical Biography of Champ Clark” (Ph.D. diss., St. Louis Univ., 1971), isavailable from University Microfilms. Morrison also published “Champ Clark andthe Rules Revolution of 1910, ” Capitol Studies 2 (Winter 1974): 43–56, and “America’s Ring-Tailed Roarer: Speaker of the House Champ Clark, ” GatewayHeritage 10 (Spring 1990): 57–63. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link et al., vols. 23–29 (1977–1993), shed light on many aspectsof Clark’s relations with Wilson. Lewis L. Gould, Reform and Regulation:American Politics from Roosevelt to Wilson (1986; repr. 1996), and DavidSarasohn, The Party of Reform: Democrats in the Progressive Era(1989), consider Clark as a party leader. An excellent obituary is in the NewYork Times, 3 Mar. 1921. [Source: American National Biography]I am a proud member of the Universal Autograph Collectors Club(UACC), The Ephemera Society of America, the Manuscript Society & theAmerican Political Items Collectors (APIC) (member name: John Lissandrello). 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