James Beauchamp (Champ) CLARK, Congress, MO (1850-1921)

CLARK James Beauchamp (Champ) , a Representative from Missouri; born near Lawrenceburg, Anderson County, Ky., March 7, 1850; attended the common schools and Kentucky University at Lexington; was graduated from Bethany (W.Va.) College in 1873 and from Cincinnati Law School in 1875; president of Marshall College, Huntington, W.Va., in 1873 and 1874; admitted to the bar in 1875; edited a country newspaper and practiced law; moved to Bowling Green, Pike County, Mo., in 1876; city attorney of Louisiana, Mo., and Bowling Green, Mo., 1878-1881; deputy prosecuting attorney and prosecuting attorney of Pike County 1885-1889; member of the State house of representatives in 1889 and 1891; delegate to the Trans-Mississippi Congress at Denver in May 1891; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-third Congress (March 4, 1893-March 3, 1895); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress; elected to the Fifty-fifth and to the eleven succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1897, until his death; minority leader (Sixtieth and Sixty-first Congresses), Speaker of the House of Representatives (Sixty-second through Sixty-fifth Congresses), minority leader (Sixty-sixth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1920 to the Sixty-seventh Congress; chairman of the Democratic National Convention in 1904; died in Washington, D.C., on March 2, 1921; funeral services were held in the Hall of the House of Representatives; interment in City Cemetery, Bowling Green, Mo.

Bibliography

Clark, Champ. My Quarter Century of American Politics. 2 vols. New York: Harper, 1920; Morrison, Geoffrey F. ``A Political Biography of Champ Clark.'' Ph.D. diss., St. Louis University, 1972.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present