^*f., ^t/;.a(B»;«- ■ .^\ied May 14, 1919 V ;^^ \^s OF ?m>c^^ NOV 14 1958 /i ^e,, 1920 PITTSBURGH, PENNA. (Copyrighted 1920 •>}g>igM£>o= itej^^d @3g5Kc;<~ Chronology IN LOCAL SCHOOL Scholar .... 12 years . . . 1854-1866 Secretary, Treasurer AND Teacher . . 4 years . . . 1866-1870 Superintendent . 25 years . . . 1870-1895 IN ORGANIZATION fVORK Allegheny County Sunday School Association Director .... 26 years . . . 1893-1919 President. . . . 4 years . . . 1898-1902 Pennsylvania State Sunday School Association Director .... 24 years . . . 1895-1919 President. ... 13 years . . . 1906-1919 International Sunday School Association Member of Executive Committee . . 17 years . . . 1902-1919 Vice-president . . i year . . . 1918-1919 World' s Sunday School Association Member of Executive Committee . . 15 years . . . 1904-1919 Chairman Executive Committee . . 6 years . . . 1913-1919 His MASTER PASSION 1 HE purpose of civilization is character. The growth of industry, the perfection of the arts, the study of science, the development of law — all these are noble phases of human endeavor. But greater than all these, and more important, is the building of character. When we think of Henry John Heinz, we do not think of the great business he founded, the material success he achieved, the high place he won in the affairs of men, but we think of his honored name, and this means his character. Not only was he a man of exalted character, but the master passion of his life was developing character in others. The keynote of his frequent talks and addresses to his employees was the funda- mental importance of character. He never lost an opportunity to emphasize it. He believed profoundly that the Sunday School was a divinely conceived agency for character building in the young. His use of that agency was made, in many respects, the first busi- ness of his life. This is his testimony, as he wrote it in the last year of his life, after a sixty-four-year test, in response to a request for a statement of his opinion of the value of the Sunday School in a man's life: "From my early boyhood I have been a member of the Sunday School. In my early twenties I was a teacher; at twenty-six, was Superintendent of a vil- lage school. In middle life I became identified with the organized Simday School work. "To the child the Sunday School is a great source from which to obtain life's principles. "To the young man or young woman, either as scholar or teacher, it pays the greatest reward possible for the time and means invested. "To one in middle life it is a constant inspiration, while in riper years it is the greatest influence in sustaining one's hope and faith in immortality. "To my mind the Sunday School is the world's greatest living force for character building and good citizenship. It has paid me the largest dividends of any investment I ever made. I bear testimony that in my own life the Sun- day School has been an influence and an inspiration second only to that of a consecrated mother." [7] e>^ MOTHER'S INFLUENCE iHE answer to the question: "What were the fountain heads of that man's character?" depends on who the man is. If it is Wesley, the first answer is, "Susannah Annesley." If it is Lincoln, the answer is "Nancy Hanks." Back of the man is his mother. The mother of Mr. Heinz, Anna Margaretta Heinz, was a singularly devout woman. To her the Bible was a book of divinely revealed principles. She conceived it to be her duty to inculcate those principles in the mind of her boy, by precept and practice. She had a holy ambition for her boy — that he might become a min- ister. Although business life claimed him, her ambition was not wholly unfulfilled. She lived to see him a mature man, whose un- wavering devotion to the church, which he often called"the greatest institution in the world," filled her heart with joy. This good woman molded the character of her boy, by her own Bible-flavored, Christian-scented motherhood. He never forgot those old-fashioned lessons learned at her knee. In naming the influences that had fashioned his life, his thought always went straight back to home and mother. He never failed to give her credit for what he became. Speaking as president of the Allegheny County Sunday School Association, the week after her death, he paid this tribute to her: "In living for the Master and serving Him, some things have been incal- culably helpful, and I turn, especially at this time, with grateful heart, to the teaching of my mother, whom only a week ago the Lord soothed to sleep. Many of her sayings ever stand guard around my thoughts or stimulate my actions." Again, in the opening paragraph of his will, after making a con- fession of his faith in Christ as his Saviour, and testifying to the .wonderful way in which God had sustained him through a long life, he adds: "This legacy was left me by my consecrated mother, who was a woman of strong faith, and to it I attribute any success I may have attained during my life." [9] /n the local school 1 HE subject's first connections with a Sunday School was as a scholar in the Lutheran Church in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, a village five miles from Pittsburgh, where the family lived. It was as a member of Pastor Walz's class that he served his Sunday School apprenticeship. In young manhood, he became a member of the Sunday School of Union Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church, Sharpsburg. After serving as Secretary, Treasurer, Teacher and Assistant Superintendent, he became, at twenty-six, in 1870, Superintendent. A few years later he transferred his membership to Grace Methodist Protestant Church in the same town, and became Superintendent of that school. He filled this office until his removal to Pittsburgh in 1890, when his membership was transferred to the First Methodist Protestant Church, and he was elected Superin- tendent of that school. By 1895, his business interests requiring his absence from home so much, he laid down his Superintendent's work, after a quarter of a century's service. In 1915 he was chosen Honorary Superintendent of Grace Sun- day School in Sharpsburg. He found much pleasure in that relation- ship, because of his many years' active connection with that school. He made frequent visits to it, and was present on the Sunday before his last illness began. Mr. Heinz brought to his local Sunday School work the same boundless energy, the same stimulating enthusiasm that marked his business activities. With magnetism that was contagious, he inspired pastor, teachers and scholars alike. From his cheery greet- ings in opening the school to his closing review of the lesson, he radiated enthusiasm, sounding the onward march to which the organization responded joyfully. He dominated, for he had that kind of a personality, but did not domineer. One of his pastors said: "I had the privilege of teaching under him for three years. He was always considerate, gracious, brotherly; in fact, so democratic that it is misleading to speak of having taught 'under' him; no one who worked with him could feel 'under' him." [11] As a side light revealing the reason of his success as a superin- tendent, two incidents may be related: A scholar who came from a humble home in the outskirts of the town had died of the dreaded disease of "black diphtheria." The home was quarantined and shunned. At Mr. Heinz's request the pastor went to the stricken home to conduct a funeral service. To the pastor's astonishment, the Superintendent was present. The exacting demands of a grow- ing business, the fact that he had a family of little children at home, did not deter this Superintendent from doing what his conception of his office required of him as a duty to one of his scholars. In the case of another scholar, a boy, the Superintendent noticed that he was fond of reading. He made that observation while pass- ing the boy's home occasionally, and seeing him lying in the grass of the front yard reading. Thereafter the Superintendent took an interest in that boy's reading, furnishing him with books and read- ing material of a helpful kind. That boy is now, and for years has been, the Superintendent of that Sunday School, and in relating the above incident, he said: "This happened at the busiest time of Mr. Heinz's whole career, when he was laying the foundations of his business, working sixteen hours, and sometimes more, a day, yet he had time, with all his activities, to talk to a boy of eight years about his affairs, and he had time to talk to boys and girls in our Sunday School about their plans and their future and about the life to come." [12] The field widens What could be more natural and inevitable than that a growing work and a growing man should be drawn together. The organ- ized Sunday School work, as now known, was beginning to de- velop. Mr. Heinz, man of vision that he was, saw its possibilities. Knowing the value of organization in business, he sensed, in the organized Sunday School movement, the opportunity of applying business methods and principles to the work to which he was so attached. He had done this in his local school work. He was ready to attempt it in a broader way. On the other hand, the organized Sunday School work, learning of his success in his own school, was glad to relate him to its work. So, in 1893, he was invited to become a member of the Board of Directors of the Allegheny County Sunday School Association, which had been organized in 1890. In five years, 1898, he was chosen President, and was re-elected each year thereafter, until he had held the office for four years, with one exception, the longest continuous term. It was during his term as President that he began to initiate new movements in Sunday School work, a characteristic that marked his subsequent long leadership in the organized work. First and foremost among the policies of the new executive was that of putting the association on a business basis. He needed busi- ness men to do this. He attracted to the organization men of business influence and standing in the community. He knew that the community would measure the organization by the men who conducted it. Business had taught him that it is not buildings or machines or materials that count most, but men. He had been a finder, a trainer, an inspirer of men in his business all his life. The King's business needed men, and he believed they could be had by using the same methods which business used. Through his persua- sive ability in winning men, cultivating them through letters and conversation, making the service attractive, he built up a strong organization that brought the Sunday Schools of Allegheny County to public notice in a way they had never been before. [13] A business that has the quality of permanence needs headquar- ters. They were established, for the first time in the history of the Association, in a dignified office building. They have been main- tained ever since. Now that he had an organization with headquarters, he must have something for it to do. His active mind was not long in deter- mining what to do. The Association could plan its work more intelligently if it had definite, accurate knowledge of its field. How many children lived in Pittsburgh who were not in the Sunday School? Howmanypeople were unattached to any church? What, if any, were their church preferences? No one knew. Mr. Heinz made it his business to find out, and the Allegheny County Sunday School Association was the instrumentality he employed. Under the auspices of the Association there was made what, in that day, was known as a Home Visitation or a House-to-House Canvass. Today it would be called a "Survey." Mr. Heinz brought a specialist from Minneapolis to organize the campaign. The people to do the work were recruited from among the Sunday School members of the city. Two thousand canvassers were picked, drilled and trained. The co-operation of the pastors of all the churches of the city was secured. The interest of the press was awakened, for the movement had to depend largely upon news- paper publicity for its success, or at least for the sympathetic attitude of the people towards it. On a certain day in April, 1899, the campaign culminated in a canvass of a half million people, liv- ing in 83,000 homes, and the gathering of valuable religious data that was made available for the churches and Sunday Schools of the city in their future work. This whole campaign was keyed up and vitalized by the mag- netic leadership of the County President, who had only emerged from his local school four years before and who had been one year in the President's chair. The International Association has operated a visitation or Sur- vey Department for several years, but it was the vision and genius of Henry J. Heinz that adapted the idea to Sunday School work. [14] At the close of the canvass Mr. Heinz gave a banquet to the Directors and the Presidents of the forty-two districts into which the county was divided. This quotation from his remarks at the banquet is made, because it sets forth some of the beliefs to which he was devotedly attached and frequently expressed: "We realize more and more our dependence upon the great head of the church. We have all the time there is, and we are responsible to the Maker and Giver of time, as to how we use it. There can be no more profitable way of spending it than to teach, encourage and inspire the youth of our county during their impressionable years. Horace Mann once said: 'When anything is grow- ing, one former is worth a thousand reformers.' We love the Sunday School work more and more, because we realize its wonderful possibilities, since the young men and women of today will not only be the fathers and mothers of the present generation but of generations to come. We have succeeded marvelously well in our house-to-house visitation of our city. We have not only placed our Protestant denominations in a position to do better and more effective work, but have secured data that will enable the Catholic Church to do the same. We each do our work in our own way, but both stand for nothing less than character building and good citizenship." [15] (>>/N0THER step FORWARD: FROM COUNTY TO STATE Introduction to the Pennsylvania State Sunday School was incidental. In looking back over the twenty- four-year association, it may be said to have been providential. It meant much to the development of Mr. Heinz as a world leader and to the growth of the State-wide work. It happened thus: The State Association Convention met in Williamspoft, Pa., in 1895. A business trip took Mr. Heinz there at the same time. His business finished, having a little time before his train left, he decided to look in on the convention which he saw advertised in street posters about the city. As he entered the hall the Treasurer was reading his report. It showed a deficit of $600.00. John Wanamaker, serving his first year as President of the Asso- ciation, arose and made an appeal for subscriptions to meet the deficit, concluding his remarks with the declaration that unless a budget was adopted, and the Association kept free from debt, he would never attend another convention. That statement coincided perfectly with Mr. Heinz's ideas of the way in which every organization should conduct its affairs, and although he was a stranger and a chance visitor, he arose and said : "Mr. President: If you will stand by that principle and pay as you go and not use the time of your conventions in raising deficits, you may put me down for $100.00." Mr. Wanamaker asked for the name of the donor, who wrote his initials on a slip of paper and passed it to the platform, stating that he would give it to the teller later. This transaction was char- acteristic of the giver: quick to help a worthy cause that adopted sound methods, but slow to thrust into notice his own personality. There was something infectious about Mr. Heinz's donation and words, for the pledges for the next year's work rose from four thousand to seven thousand dollars. This incident soon led to his election to the Executive Com- mittee, and thus commenced a service of twenty-four years in the [17] State work, including nine years as chairman of the Executive Com- mittee and thirteen years as President. His genius for organization, his abiUty to inspire others, his overflowing energy marked him as the logical successor of Mr. Wanamaker as President when the latter, after filling the office ably for twelve years, insisted on retiring. He was placed in nomi- nation by Mr. Wanamaker, and elected by the Convention in 1906. See how his acceptance of the trust reveals his modesty, as he speaks to the Convention: "No man in the State can fill Mr. Wanamaker's place. I feel that his standing and knowledge fit him so well for the trust that we ought to continue him in office all his days. I would prefer to remain on the committee and work in the spirit of love and harmony that has pervaded our every thought and word all these years; but since it is not my doing, I dare not set my judgment against yours. I can but ask your prayers, full sympathy and united efforts in the cause we all so dearly love." The plans of the new President soon began to appear. One of the first and happiest was a fellowship dinner on the opening day of the State Convention. The Directors, Field Workers, Presi- dents of the sixty-seven County Associations of the State and Con- vention Speakers became the President's guests at a dinner, given to promote fellowship at the very opening of the annual conven- tion. This series of annual dinners during the thirteen years of his tenure of office are among the delightful memories in the annals of State Association history. Perfect harmony existed among the Directors, who so ably held up their President's hands that his work was made a great joy. The growth of the work was steady, and the budget kept pace with the expansion. Money raising is usually a dreaded experience and irksome task. Not so with the Pennsylvania Sunday School Asso- ciation. There the joy of giving is not an empty phrase but a reality. The President's happy handling of the matter of raising money has had much to do with it. It is the practice in Pennsylvania to ask each County Association to make a pledge. About a dozen counties had been indifferent, and Mr. Heinz undertook to cure them. How [18] well he succeeded has been told by Mr. W. G. Landes, the General Secretary of the State Association. Mr. Landes said: "Something like fifteen counties, when their names were called, did not respond with any contributions toward the budget. After two or three of these non-contributing counties had been called with no response, Mr. Heinz got up and said: 'Mr. Chairman, if you do not mind, I think we ought to make a record here at this convention that no county should appear on our books with nothing to its credit, and if you will permit me, I would like to contribute $25.00 for each county that has been called and not responded.' Applause greeted that announcement. Well, we went through the roll of the counties, and another county was called and no response made. Mr. Heinz said: 'Put them down for $25.00, 1 will pay it if they don't.' A wave of laughter went over the conven- tion. And so we went through the list, with Mr. Heinz pledging for counties that did not do so. I went out from that convention, saying to myself: 'I wonder if that is the right way to do it,' and I made up my mind, as General Secretary, that I was going to see to it that those counties, if possible, would pay the pledges made by Mr. Heinz. I went into one county and told them what had happened at the convention. One said: 'Well, the folks are pretty poor down here. Mr. Heinz has a good deal of money, and I guess we will let him go down in his jeans for it.' "I said to myself: 'I thought it would act that way.' The next time I saw Mr. Heinz I told him the story. He said: 'I will guarantee that won't happen again; they will be ashamed.' He was right. Within two years every county was making and paying its own pledge, and many were increasing them from year to year." Some of the accomplishments of his fruitful administration are these: The Association became the owner of a splendid property on Arch Street, Philadelphia, used jar headquarters, being (he first Sunday School Association in the world to own its own headquar- ters building. The financial receipts increased from $12,000 a year in 1903, to $34,000 in 1918. The membership of Adult Bible Classes reached 372,000. The Teacher Training Department, one which Mr. Heinz re- garded as vitally important, exceeded that of any other State in the number of teachers graduated. Each of the sixty-seven counties now maintains annual con-^ ventions. [19] The operations of the Association are so organized that they are carried on with the business-like efficiency that one finds in the managment of a bank or insurance company. In general, the Penn- sylvania State Association has been brought to the place where it is conceded to be the leader of all the States in Sunday School work. It is not intended that this resume of fine results should suggest that credit is due to Mr. Heinz alone. He had the hearty co-opera- tion of a group of strong men, one of whom, standing by his side through all these years, has reached this conclusion: "While the immense success of the State Association is the re- sult of well thought-out combination and co-ordination, wise fore- sight, careful and deliberate planning, devotion to its interests on the part of the Directors, Committees, General Secretary, office and field force, nevertheless, it must be conceded that the direct influence of a single strong, dominating man may either make or break any organization. The influence of Mr. Heinz was invari- ably exerted in the right direction and was generally convincing." For over twenty years Mr. Heinz traveled across the State of Pennsylvania, from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, once a month, for ten months in the year, when in the country, to be present at the monthly meeting of the Directors of the State Association. [20] Thinking in world terms It was inevitable that Henry John Heinz — a man of vision, a forward-looking man, a man of expanding life — should extend his Sunday School activity to every part of the world. Very naturally he was made, in 1899, the representative of Pennsylvania on the Executive Committee of the International Sunday School Associa- tion, embracing the North American Continent. He later became a Trustee, and in 1918 a Vice-President, of that Association. His first vision of the possibilities of the Sunday School came to him while traveling with his son in the Orient in 1902. As the unofficial representative of a Mission Board he visited missions and studied conditions. At the request of certain Sunday School leaders he investigated the status of Sunday School work, and was deeply impressed by what he saw of the childhood of Japan. In his report, read at the Denver Convention of the Interna- tional Association, he said: "Japan is the key to the Orient. The work done through this Sunday School movement and through the Missionaries in this ambitious, aggressive nation, will be looked upon with favor by the neighboring people of Korea and China. It is 'judicious advertising' of the great Sunday School movement, destined to become world wide in its scope and of blessed results." His confidence in his prophecy for Japan was expressed in a tangible form at the Toronto Convention in 1905. When the ques- tion of extending the work to Japan came up, in a few words he expressed his faith in the Japanese, pointed to the strategy of win- ning Japan for the Sunday School, in view of its growing influence in the Orient, and concluded by pledging $1000 a year for three years towards the support of a worker in that country. Frank L. Brown was delegated to go to Japan and promote the organization of the Japanese National Sunday School Association. He reported to the Convention in Rome, 1907, when it was decided to organize the World's Sunday School Association for world-wide work, and to provide for a Sunday School Missionary tour around the world to make a survey. [21] -^}a«<;^i^) c =<3aiagte =tQa!S'«»~ Mr. Heinz was in mid-ocean when the World's Convention met in Washington, 1910, but he offered by a wireless message to pay a certain sum each year for three years if the Convention would raise $20,000 a year for three years to inaugurate the work on a wider scale. Twenty-five thousand dollars a year was pledged. In 1913 the plan for a world tour, as formulated at Rome, was carried out. At the head of twenty-nine business men and Sunday School experts, Mr. Heinz led the way to the Orient, and devoted five months to a campaign through Japan, Korea and China, visit- ing more than seventy cities, holding meetings and conferences, meeting statesmen, commercial men and missionaries. Frank L. Brown has written a book, "The Tour of the Orient," which is a history of this wonderful Sunday School Missionary enterprise, the like of which has never happened before or since. The tour party proceeded to the Convention of the World's Association, which met in Zurich in June, 1913, where INIr. Heinz was recognized as a great constructive Christian statesman and leader, and chosen the chairman of the Executive Committee of the World's Association, the most signal honor of his more than half a century Sunday School career. So favorable was the impression made by the tour party in Japan that an invitation was extended to hold the next Convention in Tokio in 1916. Returning home from his round-the-world tour, Mr. Heinz plunged into the work of his new position with ardor. He built a Sunday School office at his residence, employed a Sunday School Secretary to devote his whole time to the work, and began prepa- rations for the 1916 Convention in Japan. The World War made postponement necessary. October, 1920, was finally selected as the time. No small part of every day was devoted ungrudgingly to what he had come to regard as an enterprise worthy of his best. While in the midst of his planning, with his face to the sunlight of a glorious opportunity to serve his Master, with railroad tickets for himself and secretary in his pocket to go to New York for a con- ference on the Tokio Convention and world's work, he was suddenly smitten with pneumonia, and on May 14, 1919, the wires flashed the tidings around the world that his place was vacant. [22] •'-•'-"•'-' " [^^^:T^'•r (i tjj... His WORK GOES ON LilKE those of whom Paul speaks: "Who first gave their own selves," Mr. Heuiz made the consecration of his time, strength and intellect. To these, he laid on the altar of Christian service large sums of money in his lifetime. Then, with characteristic foresight, to the end that his passing should not deprive the work he loved of some contribution from his hand, he made bequests in his will as follows: To the Allegheny County Sabbath School Association - $50,000 To the Pennsylvania State Sunday School Association - 75,000 To the International Sunday School Association - - 75,000 To the World's Sunday School Association - - - 100,000 Providing in each case that the sum be invested in legal investments for trustees, "the income therefrom to be used for the regular work of the Association as it shall deem proper." In addition, he bequeathed to the University of Pittsburgh $250,000, in memory of his mother, to be used for the religious training of the students of the University; $150,000 was to be used for the erection of a building, and $100,000 for the maintenance of a chair to be devoted to the training of Sunday School teachers and instructors in Sunday School work generally. He adds: "I am led to make this provision because of my appreciation of the value of teacher-training work conducted by the Pennsylvania State Sun- day School Association." Thus, "Being dead, he speaketh." Was it worth the while for a busy man of business to take time to promote the religious education of the youth through the Sun- day School? Let the expressions of love and esteem showered upon him in his death answer. His pastor said: "We think of him always as a man interested in the finer things of life." His employees said: "We have lost our best friend." John Wanamaker said: "A great man has gone." One Pittsburgh paper said: "A whole company will have to be called to fill the void left by his going away." [23] And another paper said: "Pittsburgh mourns for a citizen of whom she is justly proud." A great business executive said : "He was a Christian man whose life reflected, as far as a human being could, the teachings of the 'Sermon on the Mount.' " One of the most tender demonstrations of affection was the pilgrimage of Dr.T.Ukai, a representative of the 200,000 Japanese Sunday School members, to Pittsburgh, to lay a wreath of flowers on the tomb of the man who had gone out of his way to take into his heart the childhood of Japan. Henry J. Heinz became a leader of men by being a follower of the truth. He cared for art, for beauty, for civic betterment, for family, for business success, but more than for all these he cared for righteousness, and believed that in the religion of Jesus is found the highest righteousness possible to men. [24] Baitlett Orr Press, New TorU ) \ m^