The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-09-04
Sketch Of the Career Of the
Assistant Postmaster General.
HELD MANY POSITIONS OF TRUST
Connection With the First
American Bank.

Now that the First American Bank |
of Hawaii is to open it's doors in a |
day or two a sketch of the public ca
reer of its first and foremost promoter |
will not be inopportune
The recent official visit of First AS
Porto Rico, resulting in the placing of
tue postal service of that island upon |
an Independent basis, and his selection |
as general secretary upon the nation |
al committee to receive contributions
for the purchase of a home in Wash |
ington for Admiral Dewey, have again
brought that popular young man into
public view. The secret of Mr. Heath's
success and popularity is not strange
when a little of his life is known.
Those who have only known Perry
Sanford Heath, First Assistant Post
master General, as the suave, adroit,
hardwOrking executive officer of the
Postoffice Department-the greatest
business concern in the world" as
postmaster General Charles Emory
Smith described it in recent maga-
zine article-those who have only
met him, surrounded by prominent
IHeu III HIS DuSiueSS
equally alert in his intercourse with
them to grasp political point or to
master a complicated executive detail
might think that, like the traditional
poet, he was born, not made" for his
position.
This would be far from the truth
The facts are that he has been ham
mered into shape, so to speak, by hard
experience and variegated vicissitudes.
Some of these have been told; others
and the most interesting are not gen
orally known. That he was born on a
farm in Indiana and passed the early
years of boyhood in farm labor, has
often been published. There is moth
ing very significant in this. in view of
the bright galaxy Of familiar names in
American history who received similar
initiation into public life But Perry
S. Heath had training of other kinds.
Printer, banker, newspaper cOrre-
spondent in fields of special danger at
home and abroad; the cOnfidant of men
OF more than national regulations;
newspaper editor and publisher, and
manager of one of the most successful
of political literary bureaus, he made
a name and mark in each avOcatiOn
before he was called upon to fiji an Of
fee, which, but for inherent modesty,
would have frequently placed him in
the Cabinet councils of the President
of the United States, as representa-
tive of the Postoffice Department in
the absence of his immediate chief, the
Postmaster General
In the earlier years of his life after
leaving his fathers farm, Mr.. Heath
entered printing ONCE and learned
all the branches of the ''art preserva-
tive of arts" From that experience
dates his sympathy with all legitimate
trade organizations designed to pro-
tect the interests of labor without at
tempting to do wrong to capital. This
feature of his public life has been rec
ognized by numerous formal resolu
tions of organized trade bodies. One
case in point: During his manage
ment of the literary bureau of the Nc
Kinley campaign, in 1896, at Chicago,
when he was furnishing matter to 12,-
900 newspapers and political literature
by the carload, he ascertained that one
large order for printing, amounting to
probably $4,000 or $4,000, had fallen
into the hands of a nOn-uniOn office.
He refused to accept the work after it
was completed and SO firmly resisted
all pressure and threats of litigation
that the important firm which had
made the contract as a last resource
took itself into the typographical |
union, with it's hundreds of non-union |
employees, and then its work was ac- |
cepted, and printers all over the United |
States rejoiced. He induced eight or
ten of the largest non-union printing
offices in Chicago to unionize, augment |
ing the rolls of the unions by several |
thousand names. For this action the |
Allied Printers Unions of Chicago |
passed eulogistic resolutions and |
thanked President Mckinley for ap- |
pointing him First Assistant Post |
master General. 1t was like SYM
pathy with labor that led him to eX-
ert himself successfully, in his present |
official capacity, to secure the classifi- |
cation Of clerks at postoffices, another |
achievement which has been widely |
recognized.
While acting as newspaper CORES |
pondent at Washington--1SS1 93-he |
devoted much attention to financial |
topics, and with his brothers. started !
several banks in Indiana ar1 Ohio, !
serving as director in them as long as
his time would permit, or until 1894.
when he became president and general .