 John
Clarke was born in Ohio on September 18, 1857. He was the only child of
Irish Protestants. Clarke read law with his father, and then practiced
law with him beginning in 1878. After earning some renown as a trial
lawyer in Youngstown, Clarke moved to Cleveland shortly before the turn
of the century to represent corporate and railroad interests. But Clarke
was not politically beholden to his clients. He twice ran unsuccessfully
for Senate as a Democratic Progressive, when Senators were elected by
the legislatures of the states. (Direct election of Senators is a
creation of the 17th amendment to the
Constitution, ratified in 1913.) Before a third run for the Senate
began, Clarke was nominated in 1914 to the federal district court by
President Woodrow Wilson. Two years later,
Charles Evans Hughes resigned from the Court to accept the
Republican nomination for President. Clarke was nominated in mid-July,
six months after
Louis D. Brandeis had been nominated, which led some to fear the
influence of progressives on the Court. On the Court for just six years,
Clarke regularly aligned himself with Brandeis in supporting
legislation. For example, he dissented in the child labor cases (Hammer
v. Dagenhart (1918) and Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (1922)) along
with Brandeis and
Oliver
Wendell Holmes. In 1922, at the age of 65, Clarke surprisingly
resigned in order to urge the United States enter the League of Nations,
one of Wilson's failed efforts.
Clarke never married. He died on March 22, 1945. |
