The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1897-03-30
SENATOR coRBETT.

II is understood among Senator
Corbett's friends that as soon as the
eariff question has been disposed Of
in the senate the question Of giving
him his seat on Governor Lords COM
mission will be brought forward and
settled. 1t is further stated that his
case is looked upon by the committee
having It in charge as altogether diff
terent from the precedents set In other
cases and enough votes have been as
sured by both republicans and sound
money democrats to seat him by a
handsome majority. But whether Mr..
Corbett gets his coveted seat in the
senate or not. 1t must be highly graf
flying to him that his appointment
has given the people Of his own state
an opportunity to learn the estimation
in which he Is held in the best bus
mess and social circles Of the East
Nearly every leading paper on the
other side Of the Mississippi. river has
had something complimentary to say
about him, and there seems to be a
unanimous agreement that he ought
to be and will be seated. The New
York Tribune especially has given
much space to Senator Corbett, and in
the Sunday issue of week ago It
spoke of him as follows:
''The new congress brings many ia
miliar faces to the capital. No fewer
than sixteen new members served in
the house before the last congress;
but of the senator's. only one, Mr.. Cor
bett, of Oregon. who has been ap-
pointed as the temporary occupant Of
ex-senator Mitchell's seat. has before
been a member Of the upper house
When they were in Washington some
twenty years, Senator and Mrs. Cor
bett were popular members OF society,
and the welcome they have received
from their friends and former asso-
eiates bellies the reputation society at
the capital has for fickleness.
Senator Corbett is a native Of the
Bay State, born there in the little
town Of Westboro in 1927. and he still
bears. after nearly fifty years resi-
denee in the West, all the marks and
characteristics Of the Yankee, even his
accent suggesting the section Of the
county from which he emigrated while
he was still a lad in his teens. The
new senator from Oregon Is what is
known as a s=lf-made man. His bus
mess life began with a clerkship at
$50 a year in a small retail shop In
Cambridge. N. Y. Later he succeeded
in obtaining a place in Salem, and
finally. when Re had reached the ma
rers from his former employers, he
went to New York, where he secured
subordinate place in one Of the
smaller shops. receiving the princely
remuneration of $3.50 a week, and the
privilege of sleeping on the counter.
Young Corbett was frugal and
thrifty and on his $3.50 a week put
by enough to form the nucleus OF his
large fortune which began to grow
in a most gratifying manner after he
had conceived the idea Of shipping
goods TO the extreme West, where he
went with his first cargo in 1850 This
venture yielded $4,000 profit and es-
tablished his reputation as a business
man
Perhaps no man has been more in
strImental in the development of Ore
gon than Senator Corbett. There is
hardly an enterprise in that state Of
any Importance that his name has
not been connected with. His ambition,
however, has always been for political
preferment, and his return TO the SEN
ate. even though it be for short
time is a matter of deep personal
satisfaction to him.