Joseph Sill Clark Jr. (October 21, 1901January 12, 1990) was an American writer, lawyer, and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 90th mayor of Philadelphia from 1952 to 1956 and as a United States senator from Pennsylvania from 1957 to 1969. Clark was the only Unitarian Universalist elected to a major office in Pennsylvania in the modern era.

The son of attorney and tennis player Joseph Sill Clark Sr., Clark pursued a legal career in Philadelphia after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He became involved in a reform movement that sought to break the power of the city's Republican political machine. After serving in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, Clark won election as city controller in 1949. In this capacity, he investigated and publicized scandals in the city government. In 1951, Clark won election as Mayor of Philadelphia, becoming the first Democrat to do so since 1884. As mayor, he sought to reduce corruption in city government and created low-income housing projects.

After one term as mayor, Clark narrowly defeated incumbent Republican senator James H. Duff in the 1956 Senate election. Clark earned a reputation as a strong supporter of civil rights and worked to appoint liberal committee members from his perch on the Democratic Steering Committee. Clark narrowly won re-election in 1962 but was defeated in 1968 by Congressman Richard Schweiker. His defeat is generally credited to his support of gun control and opposition to the Vietnam War. After leaving office, Clark became a professor at Temple University.

Early life and education

One of two children, Joseph Clark was born in Philadelphia to Joseph Sill Clark Sr. and Kate Richardson Avery. His father, a longtime lawyer in the Germantown section of the city, was also a national tennis champion who won the 1885 U.S. National Championship in doubles with Dick Sears. His mother, whose family owned Avery Island in Louisiana, was the niece of Edmund McIlhenny, the inventor of Tabasco sauce. Clark was raised in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, and received his early education at Chestnut Hill Academy. He then attended Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he played on the school's baseball and football teams. He graduated from Middlesex in 1919 as class valedictorian.

Clark studied at Harvard University, where he was a member of the baseball and track teams. He won several prizes, including the John Harvard scholarship for high academic distinction. He later returned to Philadelphia and enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall and editor of the Law Review. Instead, Dilworth successfully ran for District Attorney of Philadelphia. He also refused to accept personal gifts.

Clark, who had promised to serve as mayor for only one term, did not run for reelection. As of 2021, only one other person has since served just one term as mayor: William J. Green III, who was elected in 1979.

A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Clark as the twenty-second-best American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.

U.S. Senate

Clark announced his candidacy for the United States Senate in 1956. During the campaign, Clark ran on a liberal platform which included support for increasing the federal minimum wage, expanding Social Security, and repealing the Taft–Hartley Act. He also criticized President Dwight D. Eisenhower on international and domestic matters, and attacked Senator Duff's poor attendance record. At the same time in the presidential election, President Eisenhower, who by this time claimed his farm in Gettysburg as his permanent address, carried Pennsylvania by well over 600,000 votes.

Clark was appointed to the Democratic Steering Committee in 1963, but conservative Southern Democrats thwarted his efforts to appoint more liberal Senators to committees. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 but soon became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, condemning the war's escalation in 1965. His defeat is generally ascribed to his support of gun control, especially the 1968 Gun Control Act, and opposition to the Vietnam War.

Clark died at his home in Chestnut Hill, at age 88. Enoch's son Edward was Clark's paternal grandfather and brother of Clarence Howard Clark Sr. Joseph Sill served as secretary, vice president, and president of the St. George Society of Philadelphia, an aid organization for English immigrants. He and Noel had one daughter, Noel Clairborne Clark.

Writings

  • The Senate Establishment (1963)
  • Congress: The Sapless Branch (1964)

References

  • The Joseph Sill Clark Papers, including reports, articles, news releases and some correspondence, are available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.