Henry Clay Payne (November 23, 1843 – October 4, 1904) was U.S. Postmaster General from 1902 until his death under President Theodore Roosevelt. He served as chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Early life
Payne was born on November 23, 1843, in Ashfield, Franklin County, Massachusetts, to Elizabeth (née Ames) and Orrin P. Payne. He attended common schools and an academy. He spent his youth in Massachusetts, and attempted to enlist for the Union Army, but he was rejected from service due to poor health. In 1859, he was graduated from the Academy of Shelburne Falls. In 1863, he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he found work as a cashier in a dry goods merchant. In 1893 he was elected president of the American Street Railway Association; and later in August 1893, he was appointed receiver for the bankrupt Northern Pacific Railway.
In 1896, Payne refused to provide a one-cent-an-hour pay raise which had allegedly been promised to unionized TMER&L workers. This set off a bitter strike and boycott; the company hired hundreds of scabs, and broke both the strike and the union, creating an adversarial relationship between TMER&L Co. and workers (including the city's powerful "sewer Socialists") for many years to come; the company would not be unionized again until after a 1934 strike. During this period, Payne continued to promulgate expanded streetcar and interurban services in the region, including a controversial 30-year extension of their franchise, a deal cut with Milwaukee Mayor David Rose and the Milwaukee Common Council under what some considered corrupt circumstances.