INTRODUCTION Champ Clark has been my friend for twenty-five years. In 1889 we were associates in the Thirty-ninth General Assembly of Missouri. He was connected with the Lower, I with the Upper branch of the Legislature. Since that time our lives have often touched. Champ Clark is a typical Missourian, an ideal American. He possesses high character, distinctive ability, unusual courage and statesmanship. Champ Clark is a progressive but not a demagogue. He is a safe and sane statesman. He is a progressive without being a radical, a conservative without being a moss-back. He is an Abe Lincoln sort of a man in the constructive forces that make for greatness-honesty, originality, brains, and backbone. Lincoln and Clark were born in Kentucky, early in life they turned their faces. westward, Lincoln toward Illinois, Clark toward Missouri. Lincoln and Clark were both endowed with brawny bodies, determinant wills, keen senses of humor, story telling gifts, and aspirations to achieve along lines of public service. Champ Clark is absolutely fair. While his birth, predilection, and training have been with and for the common people, yet his keen sense of justice and his RECORD demonstrate that he would not do a wrong to any legitimate industry, however large or small. Champ Clark is a peacemaker and unifier of his party. |