(Grenville Clark was a distinguished lawyer and a champion...)
Grenville Clark was a distinguished lawyer and a champion of world peace. He played leading roles in preparing the United States for two world wars. His main concern was world peace, and in 1950 he devised a plan for world peace through enforceable world law. This book consists of over 40 essays written by some of the people whose lives touched his. The essays view Clark in every aspect of his life including those by Averell Harriman and Louis B. Sohn. A great way to gain insight into the essence of this remarkable man.
Grenville Clark was an American peace advocate and co-founder of Root Clark & Bird (later Dewey Ballantine, then Dewey & LeBoeuf).
Background
Grenville Clark was born on November 5, 1882 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the son of Louis Crawford Clark, a business banker, and Marian deForest Cannon, whose father, Le Grand Bouton Cannon, was a railroad builder and early Republican party supporter.
Education
Clark was raised in wealthy circumstances and attended Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1903.
Career
After earning his law degree at Harvard three years later, he entered the New York City law firm of Carter, Ledyard and Milburn, where Franklin D. Roosevelt also served as a clerk. Although a generalist in law and not outstanding for brilliant legal readings and innovations, Clark gained a reputation for energy, hard work, and results. In 1909 he set up a law firm with two college friends, Elihu Root, Jr. , son of the United States secretary of state, and Francis W. Bird, who encouraged Clark in Republican affairs. Clark proved formidable in advancing his interests, which soon involved Bull Moose politics and Harvard. (He was later on the seven-man corporation that governed the university. ) In 1915, with Europe already involved in World War I and American military forces understaffed, Clark became a founder, and then secretary, of the Military Training Camps Association. The effort was supported by the army chief of staff, Major General Leonard Wood, and other preparedness advocates but was denounced by radicals as a rich man's patriotic charade. Attention focused on the elite Plattsburgh, training camp, which attracted many professionals and businessmen. However, the association, in fourteen locations across the country, trained an urgently required 16, 000 or more officers. It was estimated that 80 percent of the American combat officers in World War I came from the camps. The association was a forerunner of the Reserve Officers Training Corps. Clark served as a lieutenant colonel in the adjutant general's office, where he was responsible for the recruitment and training of 130, 000 technicians. While he supported President Woodrow Wilson's emphasis on preparedness, he also believed that peace demanded forceful efforts and evident gains. Clark opposed selective service in peacetime, and during the 1930's he espoused world-government proposals, which evolved into larger plans for peace based on world law. In 1940 Clark became chairman of the National Emergency Committee for Selective Service, for which he wrote the Selective Service Act of that year; and in 1944-1945 he chaired the Citizens Committee for National War Service. He interested John Foster Dulles in Clarence Streit's "Union Now" program, which would have limited national sovereignty in a union of free states. He contributed a book, A Federation of Free Peoples (1939), to the cause. With Felix Frankfurter, a friend from law school, Clark was influential in the appointment of Henry L. Stimson as secretary of war in 1940. Clark also gained the appointment of John J. McCloy as a disarmament adviser to the War Department and kept close watch through associates on United Nations issues. Clark's World Law Fund issued innumerable publications, and he subsidized many others covering aspects of war and peace. A Plan for Peace (1950) grew into Clark and Sohn's privately printed Peace Through Disarmament and Charter Review, which involved detailed proposals for revision of the UN Charter, including compulsory membership. Clark distributed 2, 000 of the 3, 000 copies to influential people throughout the world. A digest of this work by Robert H. Reno was widely read. Clark and Sohn's proposal encompassed courts, a revenue system, privileges and incentives, and a bill of rights. The book became World Peace Through World Law: Two Alternative Plans (1958). One plan was based on a revision of the UN Charter; the other projected "a new world security and development organization" that would supplement the work of the UN. Although the book did not lead to control of military outbreaks and armed conflict, many agreed that no future peace efforts could be made without recourse to the Clark-Sohn texts. Clark's social interests extended into government and beyond. Civil rights were a major cause throughout Clark's career. In October 1961 he provided $20, 000 bail for blacks arrested in freedom-ride cases. Indifferent to accusations of leftist sympathies, he affirmed the right of academic freedom for known partisans and worked with the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee on related issues. In his will he left $500, 000 to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and $750, 000 to the World Law Fund. Certain that a world at peace would require accommodation with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, he discussed peace freely with representatives and friends of both nations. In 1960 he sponsored a Soviet-American conference. In the 1960's Clark suffered from a lymphatic and throat condition. Earlier ailments had caused him to give up his law practices from 1946 to 1953, and later heart ailments forced him to curtail visits to New York. Friends discussed a campaign for Clark to receive a Nobel Prize, an effort that he first opposed but then agreed to, in order to publicize his peace proposals. His deteriorating health, however, slowed efforts in that direction. No Nobel Peace Prize was given in 1967.