Len Lazarick: Representative of the ?great American interest?

“Such men are the true representatives of the great American interest, and are alone to be relied on for expressing the proper American sentiments,” Jefferson wrote in 1797.

I first covered Jim Clark 31 years ago in my first real reporting job, as he neared the apex of a 28-year political career. At first simply a source, I came to admire his principled politics, and he became a mentor, then after his retirement 20 years ago, a fatherly friend.

If Jim didn?t want to tell you something, he simply didn?t tell you. There was no dissembling, just “See you later” and a phone click.

Ten years ago, I copy edited the first half of his memoir, written in an unadorned style with little need for editing. In describing other people, politicians included, the word “honest” was high praise; he admired “integrity” as well. Both applied to Clark.

He was born in a Howard County of barely 16,000 people. The population doubled by the time he entered the legislature, and now stands nearly 20 times its 1918 size. You wouldn?t be able to tell from how he lived.

Turning through the stone gates off of the ferociously busy Route 108 ? Clarksville Pike ? down the long-drive to his modest house on his 540-acre farm instantly transported you to a different time and place.

The backyard overlooks a one-acre pond, the fields sometimes dotted with sheep, the occasional horse, and depending on the market, corn, wheat or barley, with a tomato patch next to the house. His ashes will be buried there Saturday next to those of his wonderfully vivacious wife, Lillian.

Clark?s commitment to the land and to nature was deep and abiding. He chaired the 1969 committee that created Program Open Space, and drove the state?s program to preserve farmland. His own farm will never be developed.

Clark had strong sense of history, and as far as Howard County went, it was personal. He was descended from the original settlers who made the county: The Clarks of Clarksville, the Ellicotts, the Tysons and the Talbotts. His mother was a descendant of Johns Hopkins.

Given his youth attending segregated schools, with at least some Clarks fighting for the Confederacy, it is hard to explain his early commitment to civil rights. Perhaps it was all the Quakers on his mother?s side; perhaps it was his service in World War II, in which he helped evacuate the emaciated survivors of Dachau; perhaps it was inherent sense of what was fair.

In any case, his commitment to open housing, equal rights and equal representation existed from the start. When Jim Rouse told Howard County elected officials about the purchase of 13,000 acres to create Columbia, Clark asked him two questions: “First, is this city going to be open to everyone, and second, can you do this without driving our taxes through the roof?”

Clark?s commitment to fiscal responsibility was persistent and fierce. When Congress wouldn?t pass an amendment to balance the federal budget, he spearheaded the drive for state legislatures to force a call for a constitutional convention, failing just two states shy of the needed 34.

He lead the reform and forward funding of Maryland?s state employee pensions and authored legislation creating Maryland?s Rainy Day Fund, to eliminate the need to raise taxes to balance the state budget in a fiscal downturn.

Clark always sought to counteract the tremendous power of the governor. When he started serving in 1959, the governor largely controlled the selection of the House speaker, the Senate president and state treasurer ? all technically in the hands of the legislature. Now those things are unheard of.

Jim Clark represented the sort of integrity, respect for the past, and preservation of the future both as a society and a planet that is always in short supply.

We could use more lawmakers like him.

Len Lazarick is an Examiner staff writer. He can be reached at [email protected].