- Proceedings Without Warmth or Enthusiasm.



No funeral was ever attended by greater somberness than was the
re-election of George C. Perkins to the United States Senate, January
12-13, 1909. The nominating speeches were made without enthusiasm; not a
cheer greeted Senator or Assemblyman charged with the task of putting
the aged Senator in nomination. Pulcifer of Alameda, who made the
nominating speech in the Assembly, was received with icy calmness. Even
when the Alamedan referred to the veteran Senator as "one whose hair has
grown white and whose eyes have grown dim in the service of his
country," not so much as a ripple of applause stirred the chamber. When
the speaker concluded his review of the Senator's life and political
career, the incipient murmur of approval which somebody started died
away for want of vitality.

In the Senate, the task of nominating Perkins fell to Stetson of
Alameda. But Stetson's nominating speech was received with no more
enthusiasm than was that of the shifty Pulcifer. The "system," the
"organization," the "machine," have it as you will, returned George C.
Perkins to the United States Senate. The people of California had no
voice in it, nor, for that matter, the Legislature, although the
majority of the Legislature was opposed to the machine. In carrying out
the ignoble part prepared for them - prepared for them by the "machine"
which a majority of them opposed - the members of Senate and Assembly
went through the forms prescribed without a hand clap and without a
cheer.

But it must not be thought that the re-election of Senator Perkins was