Page:Men of Mark in America vol 1.djvu/310

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CHAMP CLARK

anecdotes of his legal and political heroes, with great relish and intense feeling.

Mr. Clark traces his own success to the influence of his father, and of his wife. He names as the cardinal principles for young men: Courage, honesty, integrity, industry and patriotism. His religious affiliation is with the Disciples of Christ also known as "Campbellites." He has found a diversity of reading necessary to fit him for his life work, and has always read whatever at the time happened to strike his fancy or was necessary for preparation to discuss some particular subject. He finds his recreation in changing from one sort of work to another, and "has never had time to rest." He feels that farm work (of which he did a full share) is the original and best system of physical culture ever devised by the wit or necessity of man.

He was associate editor, with Thomas B. Reed as editor-in-chief, of "Modern Eloquence" (10 volumes, 1901) and in 1904 was engaged in writing a "Life of Col. Thomas Hart Benton," and (in collaboration with Walter Williams) "The Story of Missouri." He has also contributed to newspapers and magazines.

He was married December 14, 1881, to Genevieve, daughter of Joel D. and Mary (McAfee) Bennett of Callaway county, Missouri. Of the four children born of this marriage two are now living.

Mr. Clark in a retrospect of his life sums it up as "nearly half a century of unremitting toil with no prospect of reaching a point this side the grave when I can rest." " There is so much to do in this world and such a brief space of years in which to do it. It really looks a pity that just about the time a man is best fitted to five, he usually dies. That this is a wise dispensation we cannot doubt, but I cannot understand it." . . . "I have never been ashamed to perform any honest labor and am not now." . . . "I am as proud of my farm work as I am of my congressional service. I did my best for my employer on the farm, I do my best to make a faithful representative. A duty is a duty, whether performed on a rocky hill farm in an obscure portion of Kentucky or performed in the most splendid theater in the world, the house of representatives of the Congress of the United States." . . . "It will be a sad day for the republic when any honest labor is considered a disgrace. So believing, I have never during my whole life, in whatever station, lost an opportunity to do all in my power to ameliorate the condition