Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/136

 CHAMP CLARK 117 school and seized it. Shortly thereafter he bought the most important county newspaper of that day, and conducted it for eleven months, selling it to a friend, but placing this friend under contract to run only a strictly Democratic paper ! About this time Mr. Clark was married to Miss Genevieve Bennett, of Callaway county, a stately young woman of fine mind and attainments. She was graduated from Missouri University at the early age of eighteen. Of their children, little Champ and Ann Hamilton died early. Bennett and (Jenevieve have just reached manhood and womanhood. During these first few years in Pike county, Mr. Clark was elected City Attorney, appointed Deputy Prosecuting Attor- ney for the county, then elected Prosecuting Attorney and Presidential Elector. He was chosen vice-president of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress which met in Den- ver, and was elected to the Missouri legislature, serving in 1889-90. There he showed himself to be a * ' progressive ' ' be- fore that word came into use in a political sense. He was the author of the Australian ballot law of Missouri and also of the anti-trust statute of that State, which has proved to be the most effective law of the kind on any statute book in America. Under its provisions the Harvester Trust has very recently been expelled from Missouri. In 1892 he was elected to Congress to represent the Ninth Missouri district, which seat he still holds. He was permanent chairman of the Demo- cratic National Convention at St. Louis in 1904 and chairman of the committee which notified Judge Parker of his nomina- tion to the presidency. In December, 1908, he was chosen his party's leader in the House of Representatives without a dissenting voice. In 1909 this was repeated. Following this came the long and bitter struggle against Cannonism in the House, which Clark led in masterful fashion. The result is known to everyone. His leadership brought about the great victory of 1910, which gave the Democrats a large majority in the House and elected Clark to the Speakership by the unan- imous vote of his party. He secured in the party councils a state of peace which the Democracy had not known for many years. He was the Great Pacificator of his party. No one