Perkins of Portland: Perkins the Great

BEFORE my friend Perkins became famous throughout the advertising world,—and what part of the world does not advertise,—he was at one time a soliciting agent for a company that controlled the "patent insides" of a thousand or more small Western newspapers. Later, my friend Perkins startled America by his renowned advertising campaign for Pratt's hats; and, instead of being plain Mr. Perkins of Chicago, he blossomed into Perkins of Portland. Still later, when he put Perkins's Patent Porous Plaster on the market, he became great; became Perkins the Great, in fact; and now advertisers, agents, publishers, and the world in general, bow down and worship him. But I love to turn at times from the blaze of his present glory to those far-off days when he was still a struggling amateur, just as we like to read of Napoleon's early history, tracing in the small beginnings of their lives the little rivulets of genius that later overwhelmed the world, and caused the universe to pause in stupefaction.

Who would have thought that the gentle Perkins, who induced Silas Boggs to place a five-line ad. in a bunch of back-county weeklies, would ever thrill the nation with the news that

Perkins's Patent Porous Plaster Make all pains and aches fly faster, and keep up the thrill until the Perkins Plaster was so to speak, in every mouth!

And yet these two men were the same. Plain Perkins, who urged and begged and prayed Silas Boggs to let go of a few dollars, and Perkins the Great, the Originator,—Perkins of Portland, who originated the Soap Dust Triplets, the Smile that Lasts for Aye, Ought-to-hawa Biscuit,—who, in short, is the father, mother, and grandparent of modern advertising, are the selfsame Perkinses. From such small beginnings can the world's great men spring.