Hunt, Herbert and Floyd C. Kaylor.  "Washington: West of the Cascades."  Vol. 
III.  Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1917.  p. 5-7.

SIDNEY ALBERT PERKINS

	Sidney Albert Perkins, proprietor of the Tacoma Ledger, the Tacoma 
Daily News and other newspapers in the northwest, was born in Boston, 
Massachusetts, may 6, 1865.  He is the son of George Goodwin and Emily 
(Cleveland) Perkins.  His mother was a cousin of President Grover Cleveland.  
His father was a well known Congregational minister, who removed his family to 
Iowa, where the son had his first experience in newspaper work.  But before 
that he had many difficulties in his efforts to earn enough money for his 
schooling.  A considerable part of that money came from the sale of tinware 
among the farmers of the surrounding country on Saturdays.  Through one summer 
he worked as a brakeman on a railroad and for three seasons he herded cattle.  
For several months he worked for a farmer who paid him in young pigs which the 
energetic youth herded in the commons and fed on buttermilk hauled from a 
creamery, and he realized one thousand eleven dollars from the sale of them.  
These experiences were delightful as they gave him an outdoor life, which he 
always has desired.
	For seven years Mr. Perkins was a traveling salesman with headquarters 
in Chicago.  It was this work that brought him to Tacoma, September 5, 1886, 
where he met William P. Bonney, then in the drug business on Pacific avenue, 
and they formed a partnership under the name of Bonney and Perkins.  Mr. 
Perkins gave up his Chicago position and remained here.  The firm sold drugs 
and specialties at wholesale, covering a wide territory, and had a very 
prosperous business until the depression of the early '90s, when the firm lost 
everything.  Mr. Perkins did not have a dollar, but he did not complain.  He 
found employment at one dollar and a half a day, hustling shingle bolts, and 
later he obtained a position in the city water department, turning water off 
and on, at seventy-five dollars a month.
	In 1896 Mr. Perkins formed the Young Men's Republican Club.  He had 
been active in politics ever since coming to Tacoma.  He had a considerable 
acquaintance in the east and that, with the attention which the activities of 
the club attracted, enabled him to obtain the assistant secretaryship of the 
republican national committee.  As soon as he had assumed the duties he became 
one of the movers in the organization of the American Republican College 
League, which acquired a large membership and had a notable influence in the 
campaign.  In the course of the campaign he established confidential relations 
with Hon. Marcus A. Hanna, chairman of the committee, and he became Mr. 
Hanna's private secretary.  When Mr. Hanna was elected to the United States 
senate Mr. Perkins continued as his private secretary, a position in which he 
was interested with a large part of the correspondence of the national 
committee, of which Senator Hanna still was chairman, as well as with much 
other political work requiring ability and fidelity.
	In 1898, while still in Senator Hanna's employ, he bought the Tacoma 
Daily News and a part of the stock of the Ledger Company.  Later he acquired 
the complete ownership of the Ledger.  After buying the News he sent Albert 
Johnson, a well known Washington city newspaper man, out to become its editor.  
Mr. Johnson is now a member of congress from this state.  In 1901 he left 
Senator Hanna's office and came west to take personal charge of his 
properties.  Neither of the papers then was on a profitable basis.  He at once 
converted them into metropolitan papers and by careful business and editorial 
management made them profitable and gave them a state-wide circulation.  Early 
in 1900 he acquired the Everett Herald and quickly put that on a much stronger 
basis.  Later he acquired the Bellingham Herald, and the Bellingham American 
and Reveille, the Morning Olympian of Olympia, and he established the Daily 
Recorder, of Olympia.  He owns the Tacoma Engraving Company, and is vice 
president of the Pacific-Alaska S. S. Company, one of the large and 
progressive steamship concerns of the west coast, is vice president of the 
Pacific Coast Gypsum Company and is interested in other enterprises of 
importance.  In 1906 he built the six story Perkins building at A and Eleventh 
streets, as a home for his Tacoma papers, and a year later a structure of the 
same size and architectural style was added to it.
	Of the leading papers in Washington his alone have been steadfast in 
their allegiance to the principles of republicanism, and they never have 
ridden the waves of populism, free-silverism, and other passing political 
notions.  It has been said of him he is "a hard fighter but he holds no 
postmortems," and many of his adversaries have become his best friends.  His 
Tacoma papers were the first in the state to declare for woman suffrage and 
they have led in many other movements for better political and economic 
conditions.
	In 1912 Mr. Perkins became a member of the republican national 
committee and he was reelected last spring.  He now is a member of the 
executive committee and of the campaign committee.  He never has aspired to 
public office and four years ago refused to accept a high diplomatic post.  
Few men have a larger acquaintance among American political and financial 
leaders.
	He has taken an active interest in good roads work and in 1911-12 was 
president of the Washington Good Roads Association.  He has been closely 
connected with the city's commercial bodies and is on the board of managers of 
the Associated Charities.  His charitable interests have been centered largely 
upon the Children's Home, the curing of deformed children and the education of 
boys.  He is serving his third term as commodore of the Tacoma Yacht club, and 
in 1911-12 was president of the Pacific International Power Boat Association.  
His yacht El Primero is one of the largest and handsomest on the Sound and 
probably no boat on the coast has been honored by entertaining so many 
distinguished men.  Among them have been President Roosevelt, President Taft, 
Vice President Fairbanks, and many cabinet members, senators, congressmen, and 
others of note.  Mr. Perkins has one of the finest collections of autographed 
photographs in the country.  It embraces the portraits of most of the 
prominent men of the nation for nearly two decades.
	On November 17, 1896, Mr. Perkins married Miss Ottilie Walther, 
daughter of a prominent St. Paul physician, and they have three children, 
Virginia Thorne, Ottilie Walther and Elinore Cleveland.  As a Mason Mr. 
Perkins is a Knight Templar and a life member of the Shrine.  He also is a 
life member of the Elks and a life member of the Knights of Pythias.  He is a 
member of the Union, Commercial and Country clubs.  The family live at 501 
North D street.

Submitted by: Jenny Tenlen

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Notice: These biographies were transcribed for the Washington Biographies
Project.  Unless otherwise stated, no further information is available on the
individual featured in the biographies.