(2 of 3)
Jailbirds kept lockstep time to the scurrilous words. Watery-nosed hoboes would strike a pose, chant the libel, and cadge thereby a drink of beer, mayhap, if the grinning barkeep reckoned up a large group at the rail, a finger of low-proof whisky.
The purpose of this dastardly chanty was, of course, to counteract Henry John Heinz's moral influence in Pittsburgh. Eventually he got the song suppressed.
Howard Heinz, one of his four sons (they have one sister), assumed the presidency of the H. J. Heinz Co. in 1919. Strong, able, upright, like all his family, he graduated from Yale in 1900, at 23, went into the family business. There no nepotism existed. He had to progress by his own ability. In five years he was Advertising Manager; in 1907 Sales Manager; in 1915 Chairman of the Board. He also goes in for non-commercial activities; is a director of the Pennsylvania Railroad, of the Union National Bank, of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce. During the War he was a member of the National Council of Defense of Pennsylvania; was Food Commissioner for Pennsylvania, Chairman of the Food Supply Committee of the National Council of Defense; Zone Chairman of the U. S. Food Administration for Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, member of the War Industries Board of Philadelphia; and member of the Executive Committee of the American Relief Administration (European Children's relief). After the War he became Director General of the American Relief Administration for Southeastern Europe and Asia Minor. He is President of Heinz House, Pittsburgh; on the Board of Trustees of the University of Pittsburgh, of Carnegie Institute, of Shady Side Academy '(where he prepared for Yale), West Pennsylvania Hospital, of the West Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind; a trustee for the Commission for Relief in Belgium of the Educational Foundation, Manhattan. He is a Republican and a Presbyterian. His ancestors had been Methodists, and further back Lutherans.
His concern, the H. J. Heinz Co., veritably makes 57 Varieties.** It has grown from a basement factory getting supplies from neighborhood truck gardens to a corporation with 20 factories in 4 countries, with 306 salting houses and receiving stations and 71 sales branches and warehouses in the U, S., England and Canada. It employs more than 1,400 traveling salesmen. One employe has worked for it for 52 years. The continuous service record of a veteran group totals 6,044 years. Three generations of one family have worked in the plants. All directors rose from the ranks. Of them ten tote up their service years to 349.
*Cloggers who were wont to throw themselves into the grotesque, exaggerated contortions of tom-tom exalted African blackamoors.
His father, Henry John, likewise varied his extra-commercial activities; attended Methodist annual conferences; was a world influence in Methodism; helped the. Y. M. C. A. He was a founder of the Western Pennsylvania Exposition Society; a member of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce.