ard securities sink to a 7 per cent. basis, there is some catastrophe impending.

Such an ironclad rule of thumb, of course, cannot be applied by everybody. There are parts of the country, for instance, where a 7 per cent. rate is as conservative as a 5 per cent. rate would be in the older and more nearly crystallized sections of the country. If one live in the Far West or the Far South it is possible to get a much higher return than one can get living in the East and have almost but not quite as good security. This magazine does not attempt to make easy rules for investors, because there are no easy rules governing the use of money. What is right for one person is wrong for another, and what is right for 1912 may be utterly wrong in 1913. If there is one science that demands adaptability it is the science of investment.

When you come to put away money, consider first of all your own circumstances. Figure, if you will, the very lowest possible rate of return from that money with which you can get along. Use that as your starting point. Work out from it a theory and a plan of investment. Suppose that you have no first hand knowledge about mortgages, bonds, stocks, or any other form for the use of capital. In that case you must seek guidance. You will get it either by personal study or through advice. In either case your object ought to be to find out how much more than your minimum you can get without stepping over the line where the principle of conservatism ends and the principle of "too much money" begins.

Suppose you try to study it out for yourself. You will begin, naturally, with the savings bank in your own home town, or with the insurance company nearby, for these are investors who stand out above the rest of the investment world, like giant trees in a forest of undergrowth. You will find that the savings bank and the insurance company average a return of 4 per cent. to 5 per cent. on their invested funds. They will tell you, if you talk to them through their officers, that their more recent investment has yielded a higher return with apparently equal security as compared with the investment they made a few years ago. If you give them

a chance they will try to tell you the reason why, but they probably won't succeed.

You will take their lists, perhaps, and go over them, after you get so familiar with financial terms and descriptions that you can tell a bond or a mortgage from a block of stock. You will discover, after a while, that the savings bank sticks to bonds and mortgages; but that the insurance company varies its investment by buying railroad, industrial, and bank stocks.

So much for the great investors. If you have an opportunity to talk to individual investors who are not guided or ruled by laws or regulations you will discover that they are guided by slightly different principles. The average large investor who is not a business man and who does not think that he is entitled to speculate even to a limited degree, figures in these days on an average income of about 5 per cent. from the securities if he lives in the East and about 6 per cent. or a little more if he lives in the West or the South. He gets his rate, as a matter of fact, quite unconsciously from the average mortgage rate in his own vicinity that is, from the rate he would have to pay if he were borrowing money on his own property, city or country.

It is not difficult, and it does not require any long course of study to reach a conclusion about the rate of income that you ought to get from your invested funds. You can get plenty of sane and helpful advice. To repeat, it is dangerous and difficult to generalize; but it is probably true that, if one should submit a hypothetical question to the half dozen most careful and experienced financial experts of the United States to-day and obtain from them a complete reply, the average rate that they would indicate for different kinds of funds would be something like the following:

An investor who dare not take the slightest chance with any part of the principal or risk the cessation of interest, and wanted marketability could obtain about 4.40 per cent. An investor who could run a slight risk of depreciation in a part of the principal and was looking simply for good solid securities and market

ability might get 4.75 per cent. One who wanted the same characteristics except that marketability is a minor factor can go a little over 5 per cent. The man who can ignore marketability almost entirely and wants simply reasonable safety and a substantial income can probably average close to 5.5 per cent. He who seeks an average return higher than this, particularly in the East and the North, must recognize that he gives up a certain amount of safety and reliability for every decimal of increase to his income.

It is noticeable that the higher the income rate the more restrictions the careful critic will throw around his remarks. For instance, almost any careful banker who

is trying to get an average yield of 5.5 per cent. for a supposed-to-be conservative investor will probably suggest that the bulk of the fund should not yield more than 5 per cent., and that the high average income be obtained by putting in some 6 per cent. and even 7 per cent. securities. He will also suggest that the subdivision of the fund be more minute as the income rises. Although it would be perfectly safe, from the standpoint of a banker, to advise a woman to put all her money into a 4 per cent. standard railroad bond selling at 100, the same banker would hesitate for a long time before advising the same client to put half of her fund into one bond at 5 per cent.— C. M. K.

A COMPROMISE CANDIDATE - A

F

ORTY years ago a young Kentuckian, who wanted to be a school teacher, was advised to apply in writing for the position of principal of a normal school. He did so. His application did not convey any very clear idea of his qualifications as a teacher but in other respects was a model of conciseness.

"I am twenty-two years old," he wrote. "My post office is Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. I am six feet, one inch tall, weigh 175 pounds, am a college graduate, a Democrat in politics, a Campbellite by religion and a Master Mason. Yours truly, J. B. Clark."

The author of that document is now an applicant for a larger job — that of President of the United States. He has not filed a written application, but the information available to the inquirer who undertakes the serious task of trying to

ascertain his qualifications is much like that contained in young Mr. Clark's note of 1872 and just about as satisfying. He is sixty-two years old instead of twenty-two. He weighs fifty pounds more and hails from Missouri instead of Kentucky. He has taught several schools and has been a member of Congress for eighteen years. His hair is white instead of yellow, but his voice is as strong as ever. Incidentally, he has dropped his first name and half of his second. He is now plain Champ Clark.

It would be unfair to Mr. Clark to intimate that those are his only claims to the Democratic Presidential nomination. They are, however, the points that are emphasized and brought forward whenever and in whatever company Champ Clark is discussed. Nobody talks of Champ Clark in connection with any of the great principles of government on

which the American people are divided. He is not known as the champion of any of the so-called "Progressive" ideals that mark the real points of difference between the factions into which both the great political parties are separated. He has, beyond a doubt, been of great service to his party, particularly in Congress, and if Presidential nominations in 1912 are to be distributed as rewards for party services Mr. Clark is entitled to serious consideration.

Those who are most earnestly urging his candidacy are pleading that he will be more nearly acceptable to all the elements that now make up the party organization than any other candidate who has been put forward. This is probably true, and if harmony among the party workers is all that the Democratic Party is seeking, the Baltimore convention doubtless could do much worse than to nominate Mr. Clark. But there is no evidence that he could hold the radical Democratic voters against Colonel Roosevelt, for instance, or that he could draw to his ticket from Mr. Taft enough of the dissatisfied and detachable Republican vote to win.

Yet, of the first 56 Democratic delegates chosen, Champ Clark got 46. Champ Clark's own state of Missouri gave him its 36 delegates. Oklahoma divided its 20 delegates evenly between him and Woodrow Wilson. The first four county conventions in Kansas instructed for the Speaker. Whatever advantage there is politically in a running start lies with the gentleman from Missouri.

First among the causes that have brought Champ Clark to the point of being a serious factor in the Presidential contest is his personality. Regard him as of Presidential size or not, it requires only brief personal contact with the big Speaker to be charmed and impressed with his quality of friendliness. Everyone likes. him and he likes everyone. His bitterest political enemies have been his warmest personal friends. It was this likeableness that won him his leadership in Congress, and enabled him to conciliate the warring factions of his party and weld them into a working unit. And this harmonizing

of the Democrats in Congress is easily the biggest thing Champ Clark has ever done.

Champ Clark was born in Anderson County, near Lawrenceburg, Ky., March 7, 1850- "the day Daniel Webster made the speech upholding the fugitive slave law, which put him out of politics," is the way he fixes the date. Christened James Beauchamp (pronounced Beecham), he was known in early life as James B. Clark, as Governor Wilson and President Cleveland were known as Thomas W. Wilson and Stephen G. Cleveland in their respective youths.

His life story differs only in detail from the stories of thousands of poor boys who have won their way into Congress. It is the typically American story of native ability, industry, and adventurous spirit -farm-hand, school teacher, storekeeper, country editor, lawyer, orator - the progression is a familiar one to every reader of American biographies. His mother died when he was three years old. As a barefoot boy of twelve he got near enough to the battle of Perryville to hear the shooting, and once he saw a little band of seven home guards stand off the whole of Morgan's cavalry brigade. That was all he saw or heard of the Civil War. He read everything he could lay his youthful hands on and acquired the habit, which he still retains, of picking out odd and curious facts from his reading and storing them away in a memory that has a rare capacity for minute details. He taught

school when he was sixteen, then entered

Kentucky University, Kentucky University, whence he was expelled after two years a fact he does not attempt to conceal. Another student, Ezra Webb, picked a quarrel with him over the meal-hours of a students' dining club of which Clark was steward. Clark was as quick tempered then as now and whacked Webb over the head with a scantling. Webb struck him in the face as another student seized Clark's hands from behind and held held him. Clark wrenched himself loose and from under his pillow drew a broken revolver - for which he had traded a Latin grammar and dictionary. He fired at Webb but the bullet went wild. Webb complained to the college authorities and Clark was

expelled. More than thirty years later Webb wrote to Congressman Clark for help in adjusting a claim against the Government, and got it.

Two years more of school teaching; then, on the advice of Colonel Alexander Campbell, son of the founder of the religious denomination known as "Dis"Disciples of Christ," he entered the senior class at Bethany College, West Virginia, from which he graduated summa cum laude. With his degree young Clark degree young Clark called on Colonel Campbell, who asked what he intended to do.

"Teach for a year and then go to the Cincinnati law school," said the young

man.

"You can get the principalship of the West Liberty Normal School if you will send in a written application for it," said Colonel Campbell, and the document quoted at the beginning of this article resulted. Then young Clark went down to Cincinnati to arrange to enter the law school.

Going home from Cincinnati a stranger he met on the train suggested that he try for the superintendency of the public schools of Paris, Ky. He got off at Paris, and within a day or two was appointed superintendent. But when he got to Lawrenceburg he found a notification of his election as president of Marshall College, at a salary of $1,400. He accepted it and remained at the post a year. Then he began to study law. From the law school he drifted out to Kansas. A casual acquaintance picked up on the train turned his thoughts to Wichita. "Wichita," he said, "was the place for a young fellow-Wichita, where the Texas steers came up in great droves and the Spanish milled dollars fairly rolled about the streets, while the Greasers were always fighting and making practice for lawyers. So I went to Wichita."

He reached Wichita as its first great boom was waning. There were no Spanish milled dollars, no quarrelsome Greasers, and the cattle were all going to Great Bend. Added to that, it was one of the worst years in Kansas history. The pickings were poor indeed. One day, the ́morning's mail had brought him a check

for $25 for a graduation oration he had written for another law student. He paid his board bill and bought a ticket for Missouri, to look for a school.

At Louisiana, Mo., down in Pike County, the superintendent of schools had resigned. Young Clark applied for the place. the place. His recent presidency of Marshall College was a tremendous asset. But the high school principal wanted the place and the trustees compromised by promoting him and giving the high school to Clark incidentally chopping $300 a year off the superintendent's salary and giving it to the newcomer to bring his up to $1,200.

Young Clark shaved off part of his Kansas beard and taught in side whiskers for a year or so. He ran a newspaper, the Riverside Press, and sold it in a year at a $700 profit. Then he hung out his shingle, and began to practice law and the great American game of running for office. He drew some early prizes — Presidential elector on the Hancock and English ticket, city attorney of Louisiana, city attorney of Bowling Green, assistant state's attorney of Pike County, then state's attorney.

By this time Champ Clark had become one of the prominent men of Pike County. He was a law partner of David A. Ball Democratic candidate for governor of Missouri in 1908. He handled some big criminal trials and gained fame as a crossexaminer.

Mr. Clark was "Champ" Clark by this time. Soon after leaving law school he found that a J. B. Clark was getting mail at nearly every post office in the country. Sometimes they got his letters and sent them back to the writers.

"I tried lopping off the 'James' and traveling as plain 'Beauchamp Clark,' but my friends insisted upon pronouncing it 'Bo-champ,' or abbreviated it to 'Bo Clark'," said the Speaker, telling me how he made the change. "I thought I would save them trouble by abbreviating it myself and began to write it 'Champ Clark.' It has been a good asset. It is short enough to be usually printed in full. Look at any list of 'those present' in the papers. Others are mentioned by sur

names only, but my name is printed 'Champ Clark."" From this it may be inferred that the Speaker is alive to the value of advertising. He is, as I shall demonstrate.

But to get him out of Bowling Green, Mo., and into the Congress of the United States. Personal popularity and oratory did it, just as these attributes have taken many others over the same route. Champ Clark has always been an orator. His voice, even in conversation, is resonant and flexible. When he gets under way there is no hall so big that his voice cannot reach every corner of it. This causes a demand for his services on big occasions. At the St. Louis national convention of 1904 he was permanent chairman. His speech and Martin W. Littleton's were the only ones the delegates really heard. There is a type of oratory in which the manner of the speaker counts for much more than the matter of his speech. It is not unfair to Champ Clark to say that his eloquence is in this class. Not that his speeches are mere sound and furyon the contrary, they are often crammed with facts. He is at his best when lecturing on some long dead statesman. His favorite hero is Thomas F. Benton, and he can enthrall any audience when he talks of the great Missourian. His eulogy of General Frank P. Blair was included by the late Justice Brewer of the United States Supreme Court in his collection of the best orations of the world. His oratory and his personal popularity won him an election to the lower house of the state legislature, where he served one term in 1889. As chairman of the jurisprudence committee he reported a billhe does not claim the authorship of itprohibiting combinations in restraint of trade and forbidding monopolies to do business in Missouri. It was one of the first anti-trust laws enacted in America. It still stands unamended and it was through its enforcement, curiously enough, that Herbert S. Hadley, as attorney general of Missouri, won the fame which enabled him to defeat Champ Clark's law partner, Senator Ball, for governor. Another legislative achievement of which Mr. Clark is proud was the

introduction of a bill providing for the Australian ballot.

His service in the legislature enhanced his reputation; and his marriage, in 1881, to Miss Genevieve Bennett of Callaway County gave him a family connection of considerable extent in northeastern Missouri. Congressional politics in the ninth Missouri district is of the intense variety. In 1888 it had taken 2,100 ballots in the district convention to choose between nine candidates for the nomination. In 1890 there were eight candidates and 2,000 ballots. In 1892 the opponents of the sitting member got together and put up Champ Clark to contest for the nomination against Congressman R. H. Norton. Even with the contest narrowed down to two men the campaign was a protracted and bitter one. From March until the end of August the candidates stumped the district, accompanied by armed guards. The convention sat for nine days and finally split and nominated both Clark and Norton. The state committee settled the matter by ordering a direct nomination at a primary election. Democratic voters chose Champ Clark and in November he became a member of Congress.

There he found himself a member of the majority, swept into power in the Cleveland landslide. Two great issues confronted the Fifty-third Congress - the tariff and the silver question. The new member from Missouri rather prided himself on his knowledge of the tariff. He had been talking tariff reform from the stump and had a head full of facts and figures. It interested him as everything involving minute details interests him. He was a much more earnest advocate of free silver, however, than of tariff reform. That was the big and burning issue of the West. "Silver Dick" Bland of Missouri was the leader of the free silver movement in Congress and Champ Clark became one of his trusted lieutenants. William J. Bryan was one of Mr. Clark's fellow Congressmen, and their common interest in the silver question brought them together in a political and personal friendship that has never been broken.

In the election of 1894, Mr. Clark, like many other Democrats, lost his Con