The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-05-12
CHAMP CLARK, MISSOURI
By SAVOYARD.


 N The government of the American
 House of Representatives is an abso- slute despotfsm. yet its czar is elective. and that gives the thing a sort of Dem- socratic tinge. There Is plenty of s aspeeeh- making ... the House. but there ,3s no deliberation. What the Speaker tdecrees the House affirms Tom Reeds body is moldering in the grave. but
 his rules are marching on. Debate in Ethe House is on issues already determ- lined. Bailey's speech in the Senate the
 first session of the Fifty-ninth Con
 gress convinced Hale, and that made the way comparatively smooth for the
 rate bill Nothing Ike tn: has occur
 red in the House of Representatives
 since the time of Henry Clay and John Randolph, if the matter under discus
 sion happened to be political, unless 1t was upon a contested election case, such
 as Patterson vs. Carmack; but an issue
 like that appeals to the personal inter-
 est of each member, who may himself
 be a party to an election contest In
 the succeeding, or other future Con-
 gress.
 It is a high position among men to be
 among the leaders of Congress whether
 on the side of the majority or the mi
 nority Character is the main thing;
 but other qualities are requisite-intel-
 1ectua1 capacity, tact, eioquence, loyal
 ty, industry, a love of justice. sin
 cere regard for the public veal Hum
 phrey Marshall would have been
 our greatest "Commoner" if he had not been deficient in character. Tom Mar 7 shall serve but a single term in Con- ! gres-; but he would have been first man
 in body that numbered among its membership John Quicy Adams. Dixon H. Lewis, William Pitt Fessenden, Ca ] leb Cushing. Robert c. Giddings. and z Abeen so cratic. Notwithstanding the swaywardness of his character and the fintemperance of his habits, he was the I first orator in the Twenty y-seventh Con 4gress and the match for the greatest ldn forensic debate. Sometimes men do not take the rank they might attain in Congress because of an indifference to I the fame excellence in such body tbrfngs Proctor Knott was such man, and so is Carter Glass, a member at the present time from Virginia. Some times a man in Congress gets bad ! start and never overcomes the adverse impression he makes. Cyclone Jim { Marshall of Virginia. was one.
 But it is a great senate, that House rof Representatives. and mainly because s4here is no royal road to preferment fthere. No skill will turn a sow's ear Unto silk purse. and no preferment twill make a statesman of one nature sdesigned for a tater-digger. A mans iexoellencies may be obscured In that ,1Iouse, but his defects will stand out 1brazen in the beams of the monday sun. Tt was said of Eugene Hale that he lowed his prominence in Congress to Flames c. Blaine. but Hale was states frnan of high order the first day he took his seat in the body presided over by Mir. Blaine. Not even the Speaker. pow
 erful as he is. can make a real parlia- ementary leader to order. Grosvenor, palzel1, Hepburn, Burton, John Sharp Williams Champ Clark, Bourke Coch- ran and men of that caliber carved out the places they attained by their own efforts. Congressional life is melee where hard knocks and nothing else avail. Every head that stands fair gets a lick; and hard licks endured by a Congressman works wonders to his ad- vantage. The scars they bore were testimony that Caesars tenth Legion was not made up of carpet knights.
 when Conkling and Blaine so cruelty punished each other, that bright May day. 1866. they were training for the splendid conflicts of the future, when
 one was to be the idol of his party and the other the acknowledged leader of
 the United States Senate.
 Champ Clark is a conspicuous figure
 fin the National House of Representa- lives and the club he w;e1ds Is an effect
 i've and powerful support to the ra-
 pier of John Sharp Williams It was his knowledge of the history of Amer foan statesmanship that so formidably and eerviceably armed John Quincy Adams for the forensic contests he so
 freouently engaged in. It was his Ia
 miliarity with the history of American
 politics that made stephen A. DouFies,
 the first man of the United states Sen
 6nT T1NVN Clark has paid more attention to Amer lican history and American biography ! than any other man in Congress. He has made 1t a speciality. as Bailey made ] a atudy of Constitutional philosophy ana Constitutional construction. Clark | "a not the accomplished man Williams tis. not the brilliant man Carmack is ! moi the orator Cochran is not the law i yer Foraker is. not the scholar Lodge lis. hut Clark can tell Williams things ahout Mississippi and Mlssissippians 1 rvtIliams never heard of: he can tell ! Carmack thinRs about Tennessee and l Tennesseans Carmack never heard of; ha can tell Cochran things about New I york and New Workers that Cochran never heard of: he can tell Foraker l things about Ohio and ohio public men ! that Foraker never heard of. And one | can see Daniel Webster, the man. more 1 clearly by listening to Champ C1ark's | lectures on him than he can get out of I Cabot Lodges life of him.
 Clark could not have made that eneech on the powers and duties of the tTIouse of Representatives delivered bv f Rourke Cochran in tre F'iftv-eighth l Congress Neither could Williams neither could Carmack. neither could l Foraker, neither cou:d Bailey, neither could Lodge, neitheN could any other man in either House of the American
 Congress As an exposition of the phil
 osophy of parliamentary government as ,tt should exist. and was designated to
 exist in this country f. IS the greatest speech the American Congress ever
 wEEWEExE V
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