The Alaska citizen., 1910-12-26

accustomed to the name of another historic character. Every speaker of the house of representatives is that. just as every president is. Champ Clark. who will succeed Joseph C. Cannon as speaker next
 year, is sure of place in history, whether he is a good speaker or a bad one, or neither.
 The president and speaker are
 the most influential men in our gov ernment, with the exception of the justices of the supreme court. No
 one man runs the senate: the story | that Aldrich ran 1t was based on insufficient knowledge.
 Champ Clark with his queer name and his reputation for bellicose oratory. has suffered good deal
 from a popular underestimate of his ability. Men have been disposed
 70 jest at a man who sailed under
 the name of Champ" and whose i bull voice and thick chin were the most lberally advertised things about him.
 | He has vast voice. and when 1 he speaks he lets out every notch of it. In private it is agreeable and
 soothing. but in public he deliberate | ly makes it rauCous and terrifying. l He gesticuates with his whole body, not for the reason that Uncle Joe l Cannon does because he can't help it - but because the sight of that powerful carcass of his waving and surging up and down plat l form increases the impression he designs to create, that of political
 transformer.
 1 Yet Champ Clark is a gentleman
 and a scholar. He Is really the
 scholar in politics. with better title to the name than most of | hose who wear it. Senator Lodge is usually cited as the type, but | Clark reading is more extensive than Lodges, his power of analyzing what he reads is greater, and his capacity for turning it to practical count and transmitting things read | into original thought is so far above | that of the overrated Massachusetts
 man that there is no comparison | whatever.
 For nearly a quarter of cen i tury he was college president ! His education did not cease with i his college days. nor has It ceased
 to this day. He is an omnivorous l but sagaCious reader, with a special 1 bent for history, politics and poliu- | cal economy. He is a man of real i culture. fully as great as that of John Sharp Williams, his predeces- l sOr in the Democratic leadership i Williams culture gets the more ad- yertisement, but it is a question if ! Clark is not really the more cul- i tured man, for Williams, with his ! education certified to by numerous , college degrees, has been willing to let it rest there. while Clark's pro-
 cess of culture started in boyhood and will never cease, and college
 with him is merely milestone. 4 noisy demagogue may succeed in
 having himself elected congressman or sheriff, or even governor or sen
 ator, some people think he has sue 1 ceeded at least once in having him. self elected president. But no
 noisy demagogue could ever be elect
 ed speaker.
 The men who know him have penetrated his disguise and know
 him for the ablest man among them.
 Yet the temptation to man
 of his type must have been irresti- ble. In the first place, he is one
 of the biggest and handsomest men you ever laid eyes on. In the sec
 ond God gifted him with a voice
 that would make the fortune of a
 Numidian lion, In the third his | political life has been spent in
 rural Missouri district where men think more of the spellbinder than
 of the thinker In order to hold his
 crowd Champ Clark had to disguise
 the fact that he was broad think CT and a cultured man, and split
 the ears of the groundlings, and the great voice and the handsome pres ence made it easy for him to do it. Later, when he got into real pub | lie life, the life that has it's center i in Washington, Clark was too mod est to think that he would ever be come one of the nations great men,
 but did realize that his congress post l gave him chance to make a little
 money for his mily. So in a per f ctly honest and legitimate way
 he used the voice and the figure as
 an actor might have done - to
 turn cash into his wfe's pocketbook
 and keep the wolf from the door. 1 It is not too much for him to ex- pect that he may some day be president. The speakership, now
 within his grasp, has always been a stepping-stone to that office.
 But it must be steadfastly borne
 in mind by all who wish seriously to deal with this new great figure in our national politics that the
 vaudeville Chautauqua Clark is not
 the real Clark; that the real Clark is man of soberness and substance,
 one of the biggest men intellectual | ly in the Democratic party today. | Grosvener, in the mock debates
 wherein he and Clark used to work
 up advance" interest in their forth
 coming mock battle on the platform
 used to taunt Clark with having said
 if he could he would tear down all
 custom houses. He said it, in
 Chautauqua moment. in the house of
 representatives in 1897, when the
 Dingley bill was under discussion.
 He has never repented saying it or
 repudiated the sentiment. But he
 said it as an orator trying to get good advance notices," He would
 not say it today, any more than | Theodore Roosevelt would
 Yet the statement does represent
 Champ Clark's mature opinion. In
 power he will do nothing to bring
 it about. Out of power he had no | "ba he