Tom C. Clark
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Image:Tom C. Clark.gif Tom Campbell Clark (September 23, 1899 in Dallas, Texas –June 13, 1977) was United States Attorney General from 1945-1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1949-1967).
Clark served as Texas National Guard infantryman in 1918; afterward he studied law, receiving his law degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1922 and setting up practice in his home town of Dallas from 1922-1937. He resigned from private practice for a period to serve as civil district attorney for the city from 1927-32.
Clark, a Democrat, joined the Justice Department in 1937 and served as civilian coordinator for the forced relocation of Japanese-Americans in California and elsewhere during the opening months of World War II (see Japanese internment). Later, he headed the antitrust and criminal divisions at Justice.
Appointed Attorney General by President Harry Truman in 1945, Clark was appointed to the court in August 1949, filling the vacancy left by the death of Frank Murphy. Truman later came to regret his choice; he remarked to a biographer many years later that "Tom Clark was my biggest mistake." But, he insisted: "It isn't so much that he's a bad man. It's just that he's such a dumb son of a bitch."
The basis for the change in Truman's attitude stemmed from Clark's vote to strike down as unconstitutional Truman's seizure of the nation's steel mills to avert a strike in 1952's Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer after having advised Truman as attorney general that he had legal authority to do so.
While on the Supreme Court, Clark was generally a conservative who nonetheless proved a key vote in some Warren Court cases expanding the scope of individual rights. He is noted for writing the majority opinion in the landmark cases Mapp v. Ohio, applying the Fourth Amendment "exclusionary rule" to the states, and Abington School District v. Schempp, invalidating daily Bible readings in public schools. Clark supported the end of racial segregation, siding with the majority in Brown v. Board of Education and Sweatt v. Painter. Clark also took a decidedly anti-Communist stance during the "Red Scare."
Clark retired from the Supreme Court on June 12, 1967, to avoid conflict of interest when his son, Ramsey Clark, was appointed Attorney General. He was succeeded in his post by Thurgood Marshall. After his retirement he served as a visiting justice in the U.S. Courts of Appeals, as director of the Federal Judicial Center and as Chair of the Board of Directors for the American Judicature Society.
He died in New York City and is buried in Restland Memorial Park, Dallas, Texas. There is a Clark High School named after him in the Northside Independent School District of San Antonio, Texas.
See also
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