Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-02-12
IN the days when James ]. Britt of Ashe

~ the Gays WHeH ydlIleS j. DiiII VI AoIle-
Vile, North Carolina, was boy, poverty
was exceedingly fashionable in his State and
hard work was the proper thing. Young
Britt was strictly in style.
He has1atelyb been appointed third assistant
Postmaster General of the United States;
but his path to that honor was full of bram-
bles, boulders, and boys. He got so accus-
toned to difficulties that at last he could
skip nimbly over mountain of troubles or
breast with bold and fearless stroke tor
rent of adverse circumstances. He and an
,,nkind Fate mixed it up together so often
that at last Fate went to the mat and howled
for mercy. Those howls we're the sounds
Britt had been longing to hear; but he
paused only long enough to listen to their
echoes go screaming down the mountain
sides and gorges of his native State. Then
he laughed merrily and began the game of
becoming leading, not to say prominent,
citizen.
He looks like minister of the gospel, and
he has the grit of prize fighter. That un-
kind Fate never took the enthusiasm and
optimism out of his soul, and, although he
is not much of talker, he is a prize per-
former when it comes to doing things.
The new third assistant was born in len
nessee in 1871; but when he was seventeen
wears old he moved to Asheville. When he
was a boy, he got very close to nature. He
worked on farm for three dollars month,
this being his first round in the fight he
made to get an education in region that
was impoverished as a result of the Civil
War. In those days a lot of people were
satisfied with getting couple OF square
meals every tWenty-four hours; but he was
strong for the mental diet and made up his
mind to browse among the books and get
sip of the old and original Pierian spring.
He Sk1mnV hr0WS1nO
and painfully small sips.
With that three dollars a month he
bought his first schoolbooks, went to the
public schools for awhile, and paid for a
little extra tuition. When he saw that he
could not go to college, he bought all the
books in the course and studied them at
night after he had finished his days work
and his chores on the farm. If anybody
thinks it is fun to study at night after wrest-
ling all day with stumps in new ground and
currying the horses, different story can be
had from this man who did it.
Having educated himself, he did the OBJ
vious thing. He taught school. 1t was just
about this time that Fate went to the mat
with dying howl. Britt had taught school
SO well that he was elected to the chair of
mathematics in the North Carolina College
of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. He de-
clined it. While he had been teaching he
had also been laying aside all the money ne
could get which was not enough to break
his back when he carried it around in
twenty -6ve-cent pieces. But he had saved
enough to take law course at the Univer-
sity of North Carolina.
Then he opened an office in Asheville, be-
came senior member of the law firm of Britt
&, Ford, and went into series of dress re-
hearsals for the difficult role of Heading citi
zen" His first big work was his successful
prosecution of law breaking revenue officials
in North Carolina. In 1909 he was made
special counsel for the Postoffice Depart
ment, and after that he became expert on
the classification of mail matter and con-
Quoted several important suits for the de-
partment
The Postmaster General was anxious to
get the best man he could for the position of
third assistant, as this office has under it a
mass of big business. Hitchcock looked
over the field of possibilities, and finally
picked Britt, who, having worked for three
dollars month, knows the value of money
and the fine results that can be had from
hard labor.
In religion the new official is Baptist.
In department he is fine sample of the
old school Southern gentleman courteous,
kindly and dignihed. And he is not afraid
of anything that walks the earth. Follow
;pu tho bab bite he formed u,hap he ct,,d1,-