Samuel M. Clark

Samuel Mercer Clark ( * October 11, 1842 in Keosauqua, Van Buren County, Iowa; † August 11, 1900 in Keokuk, Iowa ) was an American politician. Between 1895 and 1899 he represented the state of Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Samuel Clark attended the common schools and the Des Moines Valley College in West Point ( Iowa). After a subsequent law degree, he was admitted to the bar in 1864. But he has hardly worked in this profession. Instead, he was working as a journalist. For 31 years he was editor of the newspaper Keokuk Daily Gate City.

Clark was a member of the Republican Party. In the years 1872, 1876 and 1880 he was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions in part, on which were Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield nominated as a presidential candidate. In 1889, Clark was education officer at the World Exhibition in Paris ( Commissioner of Education ) of the American delegation. From 1879 to 1885 he worked as a post holder in Keokuk. In this city he also belonged 1879-1894 to the Education Committee. Since 1882 he was chairman of this committee.

1894 Clark was the first electoral district of Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of John Gear on March 4, 1895. After a re-election in 1896 he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1899 two legislative sessions. In this time of the Spanish-American War and the connection of the former Kingdom of Hawaii fell to the United States. In 1898, Clark opted not to run again. He went back to his newspaper and died in August 1900 in Keokuk.