Page:Autobiographies and portraits of the President, cabinet, Supreme court, and Fifty-fifth Congress (IA autobiographiesp02neal).pdf/198

GEORGE CLEMENT PERKINS United States Senator, to fill, until the election of his successor, the vacancy caused by the death of Hon. Leland Stanford, and took his seat August 8, 1893. In January, 1895, having made a thorough canvass before the people of his State, he was elected by the legislature on the first ballot to fill the unexpired term. In the fall election of 1896 he was a candidate before the people of California for reëlection, and received the indorsement of the Republican county conventions that comprised a majority of the senatorial and assembly districts in the State. When the legislature convened in joint convention (January, 1897) for the purpose of electing a United States Senator, he was reëlected on the first ballot, although at the time he was absent from the State attending to his congressional duties.

Such is the life of one who began to be his own guardian at twelve years of age, and who has leaned upon no one since. Landing on these shores a friendless and almost penniless lad of seventeen, in five or six years he had won a respectable place among the merchants of California. At thirty a State senator, at forty a governor, and at forty-four a Senator of the United States. As a representative of this State in Congress, none surpass him in energy and attention to business or in the zeal which actuates him in his desire to faithfully represent the people.