Senator George Douglas Perkins View All Years

MR. PRESIDENT—Your committee appointed to draft resolutions commemorative of the life, character and services of George D. Perkins beg to submit the following report:

GEORGE DOUGLAS PERKINS.

Was born at Holly, Orleans County, New York, February 29, 1840. He died at Sioux City, Iowa, February 3, 1914. The family removed to Indiana and later to Baraboo, Wisconsin, where his father died in 1852. Here George D. Perkins passed his boyhood, worked on a farm and in his brother’s printing office, and acquired a fair English education. By application and the employment of his leisure hours he added a knowledge of the principal branches taught in colleges and academies of those days. English literature and a practice of English idiom received his attention.

He was married to Louise E. Julian in 1869, and to them were born five children, all living at the time of his death. His wife survived him only a few months. She died in August following his death. During the last years of her life she was afflicted with almost total blindness, and it was one of her greatest comforts that each day he read to her from the newspaper of which for more than forty years he had been editor and almost sole owner and manager.

At the age of twenty years he removed to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where with his brother, he published the Cedar Falls Gazette. He enlisted in Company B, 31st Iowa Infantry, August 12, 1862, but in January, 1863, he was discharged on account of almost fatal illness. He returned to Cedar Falls and continued the publication of the Gazette until 1866. He went from there to Chicago, and while there acted as agent of the Northwestern Associated Press which served the daily papers in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. In 1869 upon the advice of L. D. Ingersoll, pioneer editor of the Muscatine Journal, he removed to Sioux City and bought the Sioux City Journal. His brother associated himself with him in April, 1870, and they began the publication of a daily. Mr. Perkins continued to be editor of the Sioux City Journal from that day until his death. He attained high tank among leading journalists of the day. His editorials were marked by candor and clearness. As an editor, he insisted upon a veracious presentation of the news, and rarely allowed his opinions to become in any way associated with matters of news. He was not only a great editor, but a public spirited citizen.

He was state senator in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth General Assemblies, then comprising the counties of Harrison, Monona, Crawford, Shelby, Ida, Woodbury, Plymouth, Cherokee, O’Brien, Sioux and the unorganized counties of Lyon and Osceola.

He was Commissioner of Immigration of Iowa from May, 1880, to 1882. He was Marshal for the Northern District of Iowa from 1882 to 1885. He was elected to the 52d Congress and re-elected three times, his term of office being from 1891 to 1899. He was delegate at large from Iowa to the Republican Conventions in 1876, 1880, 1886 and 1908.

Mr. Perkins was a pioneer. At the time he was a member of the Senate, north western Iowa was little more than a great stretch of prairie; the Dakotas were practically without population, and as each settler came into the new territory, he was influenced and to a great extent guided and directed by the paper which Mr. Perkins edited, and for more than forty years, each day his influence went out into that territory which he saw change from raw prairie to thickly populated communities. No one can measure his influence over northwestern Iowa, the Dakotas and Nebraska, but a man of his steadfastness and uprightness of character must of necessity have imparted to that territory the most wholesome effects. It has been said of him that “penetration, strong mindedness, intensity, application, honesty, fidelity, courage, judgment and fortitude stand out most prominently in his career.” Such qualities, when impressed upon the public mind by daily contact of the paper which he so ably edited, could not but work out for the best influence that any man could exert upon so many minds in so great a territory, the early setting of which was to have so great an influence upon its future.

There was a bond of union and love between George D. Perkins and his employees that cannot be appreciated by the public at large. It was only necessary for one to enter his great newspaper establishment, to realize the love and veneration in which he was held by his co-workers, and with George D. Perkins that included the humblest laborer as well as the heads of departments. He had himself come up through all the grades of hard labor, and had a heart tuned to the appreciation of the worth and dignity of honest labor.

Resolved, That in his death, not only the state of Iowa, but the adjoining states lost a worthy and upright citizen, an honest and fearless advocate of those things which stand out most prominently in the building up of a strong nation; his city one of its most enterprising and steadfast characters, and his profession one whose example will long be inspiring and helpful in every field of journalism, and we hereby extend to the bereaved family and friends our sincere sympathy; and be it further

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be printed in the Journal of the Senate, and that the Secretary of the Senate be directed to forward an engrossed copy to the family of the deceased.

E. F. FARR,

CLEM F. KIMBALL,

C. H. THOMAS,

Committee.

The resolutions were adopted unanimously by a rising vote.