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Show I SENATOR GEORGE C. PERKINS TO RETIRE The announcement a few days ago by Senator George C. Perkins that he will retire from public life brings to its close a remarkable career. Born on a little farm near Kenne-bunkport, Kenne-bunkport, Me., Mr. Perkins ran away from home when he was about 13 years old. He took to the sea, as a Maine boy naturally would, shipping as cabin boy on a ship at New Orleans Or-leans and sailed the seas. In 1855 he shipped before the mast on the good ship Galatea, and. sailing round the Horn, eventually landed in San Francisco. Here the gold fever seized him and he abandoned the sea for the mining camps. Fortune frowned for many a year, and he was glad to find work of any kind to earn his bread. He was a teamster, a miner, a storekeeper in rough mining camps, anything indeed that came to hand. At last he accumulated enough money to own his own team and he became a boss freighter. Then fortune, tired of frowning, smiled and soon Mr. Perkins became a rich man, even as rich men were rated in California. The former cabin boy began to own steamship lines of his own; the miner began to own mines; the teamster became the head of great transportation companies on land and on sea. His education was self-taught, but it became thorough. Finally he entered politics, and in 1879 he was elected governor of his state. Then in 1893 he was appointed to the United States senate to fill out the unexpired unex-pired term of Leland Stanford, and since then his state has kept him in the senate. s Today he Is regarded aB one of the ablest members of that body. He is chairman of the naval committee and a member" of almost every other important committee. He Is not one of the orators, but the Benate always listens attentively to what he says in his direct, terse, business-like way of explaining a matter. Mr. Perkins' health has been gradually falling, and he retired from public life solely for that reason. |