CHARLES H. SESSIONS

CHARLES H. SESSIONS was born at Woodstock, Champaign county, Ohio, in 1868. His early life was spent on a farm, and for three years he worked in a country store. He secured a good common and high-school education. He has been a student, and in recognition of his attainments, Baker University conferred upon him the degree of master of arts. Mr. Sessions came to Kansas City, Kan., at the age of twenty, and obtained employment with the Kansas City Times the very first day he was there. After five years with the Times he went to the Kansas City Journal, and had charge of the Kansas City (Kan.) bureau of the paper for three years only, when he was promoted to the most important outside staff position, coming to Topeka as general state correspondent at the capital in 1896. From that time until his election as secretary of state, in 1910, he held that position with the Journal, except two years when he was staff correspondent at Washington during the great news era of the Roosevelt administration. He was appointed private secretary to Governor Hoch, which position he resigned to go to Washington. He was not satisfied with his position at Washington, and returned to Kansas. He was assigned his old position at Topeka, where he now resides with his Kansas-born wife and Kansas-born son. At the end of his second term as secretary of state he was appointed private secretary to Governor Capper, which position he still holds.

Mr. Sessions is recognized as one of the best newspaper men in Kansas, and is still the correspondent of the Kansas City Journal. As secretary of state Mr. Sessions made a fine record. He kept the bills for legislative supplies lower than they had been for a generation. He published the Session Laws earlier than they had ever been published; he organized the charter department of the state, and compelled many big corporations, operating in the state without authority, to take out state licenses and come under the state law. He helped to invest $2,000,000 in first-class bonds for the state school fund. Mr. Sessions is still a young man and has a bright future in Kansas.

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