Champ Clark

Missouri Democrat who served as Speaker from 1911 to 1919 and nearly won the 1912 presidential nomination.

Overview

James Beauchamp Clark served in the House for more than a quarter century, becoming Democratic leader in 1907 and Speaker when his party took the House in 1911, the first Speaker to hold the office after the 1910 revolt stripped Joseph Cannon of his sweeping powers. At the 1912 Democratic convention Clark won a majority of delegates on several ballots but never reached the two-thirds then required, and Woodrow Wilson took the nomination on the forty-sixth ballot. As Speaker he presided over much of Wilson's domestic program, though he opposed the military draft in 1917. He lost his seat in 1920 and died the following year.