Two issues that stand at the forefront of ClarkÂ’s headstrong manner are his views on pacifism and race. Both were significant to ClarkÂ’s overall world view and have much to say about the complexity of the issues and about the fallibility of human judgment.
For most of his life, Clark was a military enthusiast, serving as the assistant Judge Advocate General during World War I and earning the Distinguished Service Medal. Then he changed his mind. Thereafter, he was known to be fiercely anti-war. As an example, when the United States dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he accused the nation of barbarism and claimed that America had thereby forever forfeited its right to speak with any moral authority in the world. That he also distrusted American propaganda and was somewhat sympathetic to National Socialism may come as a surprise to readers.
Similarly, people may shudder to learn ClarkÂ’s views on race. He was partly responsible for and defended the LDS HospitalÂ’s segregation of blood from "whites" and "Negroes," his logic telling him that since anyone with as little as "one drop" of African blood was ineligible for LDS priesthood ordination, a transfusion from a black donor to a white recipient would render the latter incapable of exercising priesthood authority. Such a racist view, which was also a reflection of the time, is tempered somewhat by the disclosure that Clark was one of the first among the church leadership to advocate steps toward giving blacks the priesthood.
Other ideological quandaries and soul-searching on ClarkÂ’s part could be enumerated. Suffice it to say that anyone who picks up this volume will feel as if they have lived ReubenÂ’s life with him. One may not understand why Clark said or did what he did in every instance, but there is a palpable sense of a life lived, with all of the quirks and ironies that real lives are made of. Elder Statesman speaks to larger issues as well, but the spotlight remains focused on the man himself; readers are left to otherwise draw their own conclusions.
