Clark, (James Beauchamp) Champ (1850–1921)

US representative. Elected as a Democrat to Congress for Missouri, 1893–1921, he served on the powerful Foreign Affairs and Ways and Means Committees, supporting the Spanish-American War, yet opposing annexation of Hawaii.

He was born in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. He was a graduate of Bethany College in West Virginia and of Cincinnati Law School. He moved to Missouri in 1876 where he was a newspaper editor and city attorney in Louisiana and Bowling Green, Ohio, before serving as prosecutor for Pike County 1885–89, and member of the Missouri legislature 1889–91. A forcible orator and minority leader, he led the fight to wrest arbitrary control of legislative procedures in Congress from the Republican Speaker, Joseph Cannon. He was elected Speaker of the House in 1911. He was an enormously popular candidate for president in 1912 who led Woodrow Wilson through 14 ballots at the Democratic Convention.