Champ Clark letter to Bennett Champ Clark - September 26, 1917
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September 26, 1917. Bennett C. Clark, Lieutenant-Colonel, 6th Missouri Infantry, Missouri Brigade Headquarters, Camp Doniphan, [Fort Sill, Oklahoma] My dear Bennett: I received your letter and was very glad to get it. Of course, I am always glad to hear from you. Things here have been in a good deal of a turmoil the last few days. Lansing gave out a telegram which he claims was sent by Count Von Bernstorff. It has been the source of a good deal of trouble. If you read the things quickly, it looks like he was intimating that he had bought up Congress or was buying it up. If you read it slowly, critically, it looks like he was operating through some society in this country to create public opinion. Anyhow, Tom Heflin made a speech in which he claimed he had his eye on 13 or 14 men in House and Senate of whose conduct he had a great deal of suspicion. Then Lansing gave out a feeble statement that the thing didn’t
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No. 2. L-C. B. C. C. reflect on Congress and that he (Lansing) didn’t think a member of Congress could be bought. Nobody wanted a certificate of character from Lansing. Anyhow, the telegram and Lansing’s performance created a great ruction; so, Monday morning Norton of North Dakota rose to a question of privilege and lambasted Heflin from way back. Then Helflin wanted to get in on a question of privilege. Norton’s question of privilege was very broad; based on Heflin’s speech in the House and on Heflin’s interview, or supposed interview, that he read in the newspapers; but Tom’s basis for privilege was very narrow -- confined to what the papers said that he said. I enclose you a clipping from the Evening Times which gives a fairly good account. Tome wanted to make a stump speech. The House was very hostile, and wouldn’t let him do it. Every time he strayed out of his reserve, they would raise a point of order against him; so for about an hour and a half I had a very tough job to keep down riots and fights and so forth, but I did it. I announced right in the beginning that I would send the Sergeant at Arms
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No. 3. L-C. B. C. C. to arrest the first man that created a disturbance, as I didn’t intend for the House to be made into a beer garden; and while the members hooted Heflin and all that, I maintained order. The conduct of the War Department with reference to the National Guard, especially the Missouri National Guard has raised “Ned.” I suppose, I don’t know, that you saw what happened between Governor Gardner and myself. I thought after I saw Secretary Baker, that he would surely let me know if they were going to issue any such orders, but he didn’t. I am of the opinion that my conversation with him, of which I wrote you, probably saved the Sixth Regiment from dismemberment. I am sorry that the second is dismembered. I am sorry about the whole business. I never mentioned any regiment to him whatever except the Sixth of which I wrote you. I was trying to save it from dismemberment and I think that conversation I had with him saved it. Pearl Decker jumps around and seems to think I was the cause of the Second being dismembered, but I never mentioned any other regiment to Baker
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No. 4. L-C. B. C. C. except the Sixth. I will be awfully sorry if Colonel Linxweiler gets knocked out. He has been good to you & I will do all I possibly can to save him. Anyway, I hope you will get in all right. I think a good deal of Colonel Linxweiler. He has been kind to you, and that is enough for me. I am sorry General Clark has been assigned to the place he has, because I think a great deal of him. He’s been good to you. When Governor Gardner telegraphed me Sunday night from Nevada, I immediately called a meeting of the Missouri delegation for ten thirty Monday morning at my office -- all Senators and Representatives. I had talked to Senator Stone about the thing coming up from General Gorgas’ office. He had an engagement to attend a conference meeting and told me he couldn’t attend but told me to speak for him. Senator Reed was in the meeting. Some were out of town and some one place and another. I immediately called Secretary Baker up on the phone in the presence of all these members. After we talked the whole thing over, I had a conversation with him which I reported to the members. I told
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No. 5. L-C. B. C. C. him about the Gardner telegram and that Gardner suggested one of three things. First, the order be recinded. Second, if that couldn’t be done, that it be held up until he could get here which would be about Saturday. Third, that the recruiting stations be opened up and recruit the Missouri standards up to full strength, or fill them up with drafted men. Baker said he would let me know in an hour. That was eleven o’clock a. m. I never heard from him all day. After the House adjourned, I called him up again and he said there was messenger on the way to my office with a letter from him and other documents. I waited at my office until six o’clock p.m. and the messenger didn’t come. That night about eight o’clock, he brought it out to the house and said his wheel broke down and that was the reason he didn’t get there sooner. The contents of the package was, a very brief letter from Secretary Baker stating that he enclosed a copy of a letter he had written to Congressman Dickinson and memorandum from General Bliss, Chief of Staff. The letter to Dickinson evidently was based on the memorandum of Bliss, stating that this order was universal and
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No. 6. L-C. B. C. C. applied to the whole country and couldn’t be changed or recinded; all of which papers I forwarded to Governor Gardner early yesterday morning, also telegraphed the substance. In the meantime, Colonel Fred Fleming and some other Campbellites had been after me to have an appointment with the President so that they could deliver him an invitation to go to Kansas City and make a speech out there at the Campbellite Convention somewhere between the 24th and the 31st of October. The appointment was arranged several days before for three o’clock p.m., Monday, so while I was down there Fleming, et al, I talked to the President three or four minutes about this very same things that I had been talking to Baker about. The President seemed to think that the order couldn’t be changed or recinded, that Baker had the whole matter in charge, that our units had to be increased to correspond with these European units, etc. I write you all this in order that you may know that I was not negligent and that the Missouri delegation has done all that it knew how. I enclose you a lot of newspaper clippings. I don’t know whether you see the St. Louis papers or not. Your father, Champ Clark [written vertically in left margin] We are going to stay in Laurent St. house another month. Genevieve still here. Dorothy has departed. All well. [written vertically in right margin] The Republic was anxious for the [Missouri] Editorial - Convention to condemn S.T.R., but they never mentioned them in their Resolutions.
Details
Title | Champ Clark letter to Bennett Champ Clark - September 26, 1917 |
Creator | Clark, Champ |
Source | Clark, Champ. Letter to Bennett Champ Clark. 26 September 1917. Clark, Champ (1850-1921) and Bennett Champ (1890-1954), Papers, 1853-1973. C0666. The State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, MO. |
Description | In this September 26, 1917 letter to his son Bennett, Champ Clark discussed a telegram that Secretary of State Robert Lansing received from German Ambassador Johann von Bernstorff regarding a congressmen. Clark also discussed the dismemberment of Missouri National Guard units. Champ Clark, a long-time resident of Bowling Green, Missouri, was a politician in the Democratic Party. He served as a representative of Missouri from 1893 to 1895 and from 1897 to 1921. From 1911 to 1919 he served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Bennett Clark served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the 140th Regiment, 35th Division and as Assistant Chief of Staff for the 88th Division during World War I, and was Missouri State Senator from 1933 to 1945. |
Subject LCSH | Clark, Champ, 1850-1921; United States. Army. Camp Doniphan (Okla.); Clark, Bennett Champ, 1890-1954; Fort Sill (Okla.); Reed, James A. (James Alexander), 1861-1944; World War, 1914-1918; Bernstorff, Johann Heinrich, Graf von, 1862-1939; Lansing, Robert, |
Subject Local | WWI; World War I |
Site Accession Number | C0666 |
Contributing Institution | The State Historical Society of Missouri |
Copy Request | Transmission or reproduction of items on these pages beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the State Historical Society of Missouri: 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, Missouri, 65201-7298. (573) 882-7083. |
Rights | The text and images contained in this collection are intended for research and educational use only. Duplication of any of these images for commercial use without express written consent is expressly prohibited. |
Date Original | September 26, 1917 |
Language | English |