Commissioner Richard Ernest Holz was born in Germany. When Thomas Moore separated from William Booth's army, Holz followed him joining the American Salvation Army. When Moore was removed the Generalship of the American Salvation Army, Colonel Holz was offered the Generalship. Holz accept the position but refused the rank. On October 5, 1889, Holz led 29 other officers to reconcile with the International Salvation Army under the supervision of Commissioner Ballington Booth. More officers followed after.

He is buried in Kensico Cemetery.

Commissioner Richard E. Holz of 104 Embury Avenue, Ocean Grove, N. J., who retired in June, 1930, as commander of the Eastern territory of the Salvation Army, after forty-six years of service, died here today in a nursing home after a lingering illness. He was 79 years old.

Born in Germany, he was trained in early youth to enter the civil service. But the prospect did not appeal to him and, obtaining a two years' leave, he came to this country “in search of romance and adventure.” Fifty years later he told a Brooklyn audience that he had found over here plenty of what he came for.

Yet it was rather by chance that he joined the Salvation Army and did not return to Germany. On arriving in the United States he first worked on a farm and learned the English language, then traveled a bit and was about to recross the Atlantic, but decided to see Niagara Falls before taking the ship.

In Buffalo Commissioner Holz saw the Salvation Army at work, helping the poor and unfortunate. The value of the help given, the earnestness and zeal of the leaders, impressed him deeply. He resolved to stay and take part in this work. In the winter of 1883 he joined a corps which had just been opened in the old Buffalo Court House.

A year later he was made an officer and in 1889, with the rank of major, was placed in charge of the work in New York and Vermont, with headquarters in Buffalo, a post he held for seven years. Then came a transfer to national headquarters in New York, promotion to colonel and responsibility for all foreign-speaking Army missions in the United States.

In 1908 he was appointed Provincial Commander with headquarters in Philadelphia. In 1920 he was made chief secretary and second in command of the East. In 1926 he assumed his final post, commander of the Eastern territory, comprising eleven States; one of the four main administrative divisions of the Army, which have their headquarters in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Atlanta.

In January, 1928, Commissioner Holz announced a campaign to convert Greenwich Village, with 1,500 officers in charge, and within a month every doorbell in the Village was rung. The published appeal, left on every doorstep and emblazoned on banners, began as follows:

“Artists, connoisseurs, devotees of the pagan Psyche, and others of the Village! Sic transit gloria mundi! Prepare for Eternity!”

The campaign proved rather a disappointment to its originators. It appeared that the Village had reformed itself without telling the world. The bad boys and girls had moved uptown, or at any rate somewhere else.

A general survey of the city showed that the old vice map was out of date. Black spots had faded out. It was difficult to find the devil. Commenting, in 1928 on the new situation, Commissioner Holz said:

“The New York of today is vastly different from the city that I knew when I first entered the Salvation Army. It was easy then to select sections suited to our endeavors. A Salvationist in uniform risked his life when he visited some of the congested districts. I recall being followed by an angry mob and forced to take refuge in a store to avoid personal violence. More than once the policemen saved me. I bear a scar on my head from a brick thrown at me at one of our early Brooklyn meetings. As to our present campaign against wickedness, we fire the cannon of salvation across the city as a whole in order to bring the spiritually sunken to the surface.”

In 1885 Commissioner Holz married Captain Mary Powell of the Army, who continued her work until her death in 1937. He leaves four daughters, Mrs. Ralph Goellnere of Dilworthtown, Pa.; Mrs. Brigadier G. Blair Abrams of Arlington, N. J.; Mrs. Lieut. Col. Claude E. Bates of Mount Vernon and Mrs. Major Kathleen Gifford of Burlingame, Calif.

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