by Meryl Gordon
Clark had already decided that his residence at one of New York’s premier buildings—featuring seven-bedroom duplexes with extra-high ceilings and Gothic and Queen Anne architectural details—was not sufficient to display his burgeoning art collection. After purchasing land on Fifth Avenue at Seventy-Seventh Street, he began planning a French-style mansion that would rival the palaces of the Astors and Vanderbilts.
Returning to Butte, Clark plotted another zigzag route to take him back to Washington and a Senate seat. He teamed up with mining mogul Augustus Heinze, and the duo came up with a plan to stack the Montana legislature with like-minded Democrats. They courted the labor vote by announcing that they would grant their miners an eight-hour day. Then Clark went off to Europe to spend two months with Anna. In the November 1900 election, the Clark-Heinze slate of Democrats won the statehouse by a landslide. In January 1901, the new Montana legislature elected Clark to the Senate seat he had long craved.
The most widely quoted description of the robber baron’s political career came from Mark Twain, a friend of Marcus Daly, and therefore not an entirely objective source. Twain excoriated Clark in 1907 as the epitome of corruption: “He is said to have bought legislatures and judges as other men buy food and raiment… he is as rotten a human being as can ever be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs.”
Rumors spread that the Montana senator would be arriving in the capital with a bride. A new name emerged: Hattie Rose Laube, of Huron, South Dakota, announced that she was engaged to Senator Clark, claiming that they had kissed and that he had written her a letter proposing matrimony. Clark issued a public denial. Even the Anaconda Standard, which gleefully trumpeted Clark’s every peccadillo, sided with him, stating that the stunt appeared designed to advertise “her pa’s spiritualism racket…”
Other tales of Clark’s romantic entanglements circulated. The copper mogul had taken under his wing a new Montana protégée, Kathlyn Williams, an acting student at Montana Wesleyan College who had appeared in Butte productions. Another hard-pressed teenager (her father had died), Kathlyn had approached the senator and asked him to pay for her tuition at the Sargent School, now known as the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Kathlyn was later described as the senator’s “ward” by the Washington Post. She publicly credited Clark for his financial support but was discreet about their relationship. The blonde ingenue would go on to become a silent film star, appearing in dozens of serials and movies such as Rendezvous at Midnight, Everything for Sale, and The Politician’s Love Story.
In the fall of 1901, Anna La Chapelle was seen in Washington, staying at the Arlington Hotel and being entertained by the senator’s friends, including the sister of his first wife. Then Anna moved to Butte temporarily, sharing an apartment with her sister, Amelia, within easy walking distance of Clark’s Granite Street mansion.
Anna had now been involved with the copper mogul in some fashion for eight years. Whether on purpose or by accident she became pregnant. On February 6, 1902, she was accompanied by Amelia on a ship to France, and then she headed south to a villa near the Bay of Algiers with the ever-loyal Madame de Cervellon. In August 1902, Anna gave birth to Louise Amelia Andrée Clark, known as Andrée. The news was kept so quiet that not even a hint of a new Clark descendant was heard back in America. In fact, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article that month announcing: “Rumor is persistent that Senator W. A. Clark of Montana will marry during the coming autumn or winter either the widow of a well-known New Yorker of distinguished lineage or the recently divorced wife of a Missouri Congressman.” The story drily commented that the senator had a “partiality” for the ladies and “is constantly credited with being about to marry this or that prominent woman in whose company he may have been seen.”
His fortune made him attractive, and the senator knew how to charm women. He was able to knowledgeably discuss art and literature—he collected rare books—as well as business. But he was deeply in love with Anna, a bond that would only become stronger through the years. Two decades later, he would still be writing impassioned letters to his “Darling Wife” and “Sweetheart Cherie” and “Ma Chere Anna,” signing them “fondest love.”
Even as Anna was giving birth to her first child, Andrée, Clark’s children from his first marriage were preparing their own engraved birth announcements. (These children were the grandparents and great-grandparents of the Clark relations who, a century later, would express interest in Tante Huguette.) Clark’s oldest daughter, Mary, had given birth several years earlier to a daughter. Now his second daughter, Katherine Clark Morris, was pregnant; plus his son and namesake Will Jr., a University of Virginia law school graduate, and his new wife, Mabel Foster, were also expecting.
Senator Clark took sibling rivalry to new heights by promising $1 million to his first male grandchild. Katherine gave birth to a girl, but a month later, Mabel produced William Andrews Clark III, nicknamed Tertius. Will Jr. jubilantly wired his father: “I claim the million!” But the celebration was short-lived. Mabel became ill with blood poisoning and died a month later.
Although William Andrews Clark had been obsessed with winning entry to the world’s most exclusive club, as the Senate was known, once the prize was attained he was more interested in enlarging his financial empire than bothering with the details of crafting legislation. Constantly traveling, he went to Russia to look at potential mining acquisitions; visited Paris to see Anna and purchase paintings, tapestries, and antique lace; headed to Los Angeles to check on his widowed mother and meet with his brother Ross to inspect their new sugar beet farms; and traveled to Arizona and Montana to look in on his mining operations. He spent many hours hammering out the settlement of a long-running fight with E. H. Harriman over constructing a railroad from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. Clark chose a dusty Nevada outpost as a railroad refueling stop, which was incorporated as Las Vegas. Grateful Nevada citizens christened the area Clark County. The Los Angeles Times gushed in a headline: W.A. CLARK THE BUSIEST MAN IN THE SWIM.
His triumphant march through the business pages hit a snag, however, with the eruption in April 1903 of a long-brewing scandal. Mary McNellis, the New Yorker whom he had wined and dined back in 1896 at the Chicago convention, went public with the details of her $150,000 breach-of-promise lawsuit against him. McNellis complained that her lawsuit, filed many years earlier, had been unfairly dismissed in secret proceedings and demanded a new trial. An irate Clark announced, “I would rather stand publicity than give up money when I am innocent.” In McNellis’s version, Clark had been a frequent caller at her Forty-Second Street apartment, helped her with her German lessons, and sent her notes signed “Votre ami.” Clark admitted that he’d met McNellis four times and had been fond of her but was offended when he began receiving letters from her lawyer “trying to induce me to pay money. I would not submit to the demands and I will not do so now.” Clark prevailed and the lawsuit was thrown out.
At the end of 1903, William Andrews Clark was in a reflective mood. Anna La Chapelle had become pregnant again earlier that year but this time the baby—a boy—died within an hour of his birth in France. Anna’s place in the senator’s life remained a secret, so his children and colleagues were unaware of the loss of the child.
Sitting in his Wall Street office, the senator gave an unusually candid interview to the Dallas Morning News (SENATOR W. A. CLARK, CROESUS, TELLS ABOUT HIMSELF). Clark came across as a lonely and self-important man consumed by work yet eager to be admired for his good taste as a patron of the arts. “His shoulders are spare, his frame is lean, his features are sharply cast. He has the eyes of an eagle,” the writer noted. “It was his quiet demeanor, his soberness, his seriousness which can, if necessary, give way to dramatic and forceful denunciation, which impressed me.”
Clark described himself as an early riser, up for
an energetic stroll around his Central Park neighborhood at dawn and finished with breakfast by 8 a.m. He often walked from his Fifty-Eighth Street apartment down to Wall Street for the exercise and at night avoided rich meals, limiting himself to one cigar and poring over business until late at night. “So what if I do work twelve, fourteen and sixteen hours a day?” the sixty-four-year-old Clark said, emphasizing that he still felt like a young man. “I can do good by working. Thousands of men and women are depending upon my energies for their bread and butter.”
He cited two great passions: fine European wines that he took with him by the case when traveling, and splurging on art. “I was born with the innate love of the beautiful in nature and in the arts,” he said, bragging that he had sixty-four masterpieces in storage in Vienna awaiting the completion of his Fifth Avenue mansion. He stressed that he had rarely relied on art advisers and instead relied on his own taste and judgment. (Which may explain why the Corcoran Gallery later identified numerous fakes in his collection.) Reciting the countries where he had toured galleries and museums—England, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Holland—Clark said, “I acquired a distinctive perception and correct notions and taste in painting, sculpture, architecture and other beautiful arts.”
With a nod to his children, he mentioned that in his rare time off, he took pleasure in the Sunday afternoon musicales given by his two Manhattan-based daughters, Katherine and Mary, as well as attending the opera.
Asked about his philanthropic plans, Clark gave a surprisingly honest answer, noting that he especially liked to help young women. “I find that a direct application of aid to young people—especially girls without means—to prepare themselves for the unequal struggle in life is fruitful in gratifying results,” Clark said. Gratifying indeed, judging by the devotion expressed toward him by Anna La Chapelle.
The journalist ended the interview by asking Clark whether he would follow in the footsteps of three other senators who, “in the autumn of their lives,” had recently wed. Clark laughed at the question, replying, “I can not tell you how happy I was with my beautiful wife, who died in 1893. I believe in marriage when one can afford that luxury, but I am not seriously considering it.” Then he added, with another chuckle, “I am quite too young to think of it yet.”
A few weeks later, Clark was reminded of his own mortality when he developed mastoiditis, an acute ear infection that spread into his skull. With a high fever and intense pain, Clark underwent two operations and was confined to bed for several weeks at his New York apartment. Even as he was recovering, tragedy struck the family yet again. The wife of his son Charles, who was visiting friends and staying at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, became ill and died suddenly in January 1904. Both of Clark’s sons had now become widowers, within just two years of each other.
In April, word spread that Clark was on his deathbed. MODERN CROESUS A VERY SICK MAN. CLARK MAY NOT LIVE TO RETURN TO BUTTE. HIS WEALTH, ESTIMATED FROM $50,000,000 TO $200,000,000, LIKELY TO GO TO HIS SONS AND DAUGHTERS AND HIS GRANDSON, W.A. CLARK III was the headline of the April 22, 1904, story in the Minneapolis Journal. The article noted that the senator had recently had a falling-out with his namesake lawyer son. “It has been reported in Butte for a year or more that W. A. Clark Junior has become estranged from his father and the rest of the family and certain things have happened to lend color to this report.” (The reason for the estrangement never became public, but years later a Clark family retainer went public with a vivid description of Junior’s energetic sexual pursuit of attractive young men.)
The deathbed reports were exaggerated, but Clark’s health remained poor. Clark sailed to Europe on the American liner Princess with plans to cruise the Mediterranean, announcing that he was taking a trip that might last seven weeks to “put the finishing touch” on his convalescence. Anna joined him.
By now, William Andrews Clark had painted himself into a corner in terms of his relationship with Anna La Chapelle. He had repeatedly insisted publicly that the relationship was platonic. He had lied to his four older children, neglecting to mention his bouncing new baby, Andrée. He told the Dallas newspaper that he had no plans to remarry.
But Clark had decided that he was ready to officially acknowledge Anna in his life as his wife. He was sixty-five years old, and there was never going to be a good time to explain their tangled past. But before he went public, he needed to break the news to his children. Clark’s dilemma: finding a palatable way to explain the existence of his and Anna’s nearly two-year-old daughter. There was only one quasi-respectable solution: backdate the year of a supposed wedding and claim it occurred prior to Andrée’s birth.
On June 30, the senator returned from Europe and met with his two daughters, Katherine and May, to apologetically break the news of their new stepmother and half sister. Katherine described her reaction to this painful revelation in a letter to her younger brother Will Jr., writing: “A line only, dearest Will, as of course you know by now of our father’s marriage—while May and I are greatly grieved and disappointed we must all stand by our dear father and try to make it as easy for him as possible because he realizes his mistake—your heart would have ached could you have seen him the night he left us for St. Louis, and I can’t get over the way he looked so badly. Don’t let anyone know that I have written you…”
While attending the St. Louis Democratic Convention, the senator remained discreet about his personal life as his party nominated New York justice Alton Parker for president. (Parker would be trounced by incumbent Teddy Roosevelt in the fall.) Then on July 12, 1904, Clark issued a terse announcement, stating that he had married Anna La Chapelle three years earlier, on May 25, 1901, in Marseille and that they had a two-year-old daughter.
The secret to getting away with a big lie is making sure that all the minor facts are straight. The senator should have checked his calendar before choosing a date and place for the alleged ceremony. It turned out that his own newspaper, the Butte Miner, had interviewed Clark on June 1, 1901, and published a detailed account of his recent European trip in which Marseille was not on the itinerary or even close to the cities named.
Newspapers went wild over the news of Clark’s marriage to his former ward. The New York Times reported that Anna’s mother, Philomene La Chapelle, was “dumbfounded” to hear of the secret wedding. In a story with a Washington, D.C., dateline, the Minneapolis Journal noted that the tale of Clark’s not-so-new bride had created “feverish interest” in the capital: “Official society is particularly concerned. Indeed, it is viewing the situation with anxiety, not to say alarm. It is wondering, for instance, whether or not the senator will attempt to secure social recognition for the wife. The consensus of opinion seems to be that if he is a wise man he will not.”
Behind the scenes, Clark’s friends tried to sanitize the tale, insisting that the couple had indeed wed back in 1901 but that it was a religious ceremony, explaining the lack of an official license. These statements, from anonymous sources, were treated with skepticism.
This was such a delicious melodrama that no angle went unexplored, most notably the concerns of William Clark’s four older children that their inheritance would shrink due to his new marriage and child. “The whole family of Senator Clark resent his last matrimonial alliance and it is doubted if they will ever become reconciled to receiving Audree [sic], the little interloper, into the bosom of their confidence,” wrote the Seattle Star, in words that proved prophetic. To ameliorate his children’s concerns, Clark had quietly transferred assets to them; Will Jr., for example, received title to Clark’s Butte home plus an interest in several mines. Meanwhile, Charles Clark was embarking on a new chapter of his life and had just become engaged to the polo-playing California banking heiress Celia Tobin.
William Andrews Clark was forced to defend the virtue of his bride. He issued a carefully worded statement that appeared in the one newspaper that would not challenge his account: the Butte Miner. He explained the supposed two years of secrecy b
y saying, “Mrs. Clark did not care for social distinction nor the obligations that would entail upon my public life. She was anxious to remain in Europe for a time to continue her studies and felt she could do with more freedom.” Then he added the busy-man excuse, saying, “Personally, I would have preferred to have her with me at all times, but my extensive interests compelled me to spend a great deal of time traveling through the United States…”
He attempted to address the reports that his children were mortified by his marriage. “It has been stated that my family objected to this union. Whatever apprehension, if any, may have existed in this respect on my part was entirely dissipated when the facts were disclosed by the cordial reception of the information and their approval of these relations which were so essential to my happiness. Then again, I wanted my child to be educated in America and brought up as a resolute and patriotic American.”
His older children found it impossible to remain simultaneously honest and diplomatic. His eldest daughter, Mary Clark Culver, made grudgingly supportive comments to reporters, making it clear that she and her siblings had been caught off-guard. “My father’s happiness is the first consideration of his children,” Mary said. “All talk of opposition to my father’s marriage is ridiculous. He literally gave us no time for opposition. It came as a complete surprise.” She admitted that the family was not entirely clueless about her father’s romance. “Oh, yes, we had heard rumors of it before but never considered them seriously at all… we gave them no credence whatever. When we learned the fact here from my father’s lips, it was completely unexpected.” Mary acknowledged that she had been startled to learn that she now had a new half sister. Mary and her siblings were wary of Clark’s new wife due to her youth, her undistinguished background, and her religion—Anna was a practicing Catholic, while they had been brought up Presbyterian.