The Sudden Death of the Man Who Ran Seattle’s Newspaper, Bank and Republican Party

For reasons which to finite minds are incomprehensible, and in accordance with those mysterious ways which are inscrutable, there has been cut off in our midst a young life full of promise, bright with hopes and rich in prospects for a future of abundant usefulness and honorable distinction. The world looks with a certain resignation upon the close of a life well spent and full of years and honors, but when a career is suddenly cut short in the vigor and freshness of early manhood, a shocked humanity recognizes that a promising vital force is gone, and with reason laments it as a public calamity and a loss.

George H. Heilbron was stricken down when, we might say, his life had but begun. Well educated and strengthened by enlarged experience and observation, he had but barely entered upon the active career of a useful, influential, highly esteemed and respected citizen. His death is a shock to his fellow citizens from which recovery will follow only by degrees. His loss is one which will be measured only when his absence brings us to a realizing sense of the great and good influence he exerted in this community.

Endowed with a strong, vigorous intellect and possessed of a judgment unusually mature for a man of his years, he early identified himself with the prominent interests of Seattle and became an unmistakable force in our city life. He entered with enthusiasm upon the task set by a united people of building up a large, populous and prosperous municipality, and with all public movements inaugurated with the welfare of his adopted home in view, he was always among the first to ally himself. With sound, sturdy sense and quick discernment, his fellow citizens soon recognized the invariable strength of his opinions and advice, and there were few whose counsel was oftener sought and heeded when questions affecting the public good arose and demanded a solution.

Mr. Heilbron was a Republican in politics and a prominent and influential personage in the councils of that party. He believed in Republican principles and was an earnest and indefatigable worker for the success of the political organization which would carry out those principles, so much so that he had come to be regarded as one of the leading Republicans of the state and a highly valued adviser in political consultation.

His home life was at once an ideal one. Those to whom was privileged a knowledge of the rare domestic happiness of that circle, now shattered, plunged in grief and inconsolable through the loss of its light and life, must ever carry a remembrance fragrant only with the sweetest associations. How tender a husband; how affectionate, gentle, solicitous a father; how kindly and nobly filial a son! The memory of such a man is forever blessed, not only to the crushed and heart-broken widow, not only to the grief-stricken father and brother, not only to the innocent children who little realize their incalculable loss, but also to every friend and acquaintance across whose path has been thrown the sunshine of a domestic life so sweet, so bright, so beautiful.

The Seattle News said: “The death of Mr. George H. Heilbron, which occurred suddenly this morning, is a severe blow to this community. Sincere sympathy and profound condolence with his family and immediate relatives will be universally felt and extended. Without any premonition, so far as known, an active life has been cut off while in the midst of useful endeavor and filled with highest aspirations.”

The Press-Times said: “In business, especially in banking circles, in which occupation he had been engaged since coming to Seattle, he was esteemed as a man of sound, conservative judgment, of scrupulous business integrity and more than ordinary capacity. In politics he was an ardent partisan, energetic but prudent, firm in purpose, yet never obtrusive, either in expression or in act. These qualities he carried into the wider field of journalism, with which, during the past five months, he had been prominently identified as editor of the Post-Intelligencer.”